This is True, Just Not for Me

I spend hours at work reading things on the internet that are not related to my job or my continuing education (in the formal sense). I read from sources that more or less align with my world view, because I am human, and from a few reputable gossipy trash sites that the filters will let me get to. Some days I get little bits out of what I read, occasional history lessons, reasons to become a vegetarian and/or a better person, affirmations that i'm not a complete twat, confirmation that I am exactly the person that i don't want to be.

Last semester I took Psych 101, because I needed a fluffy class to flesh out all the harder sciences and numerous labs i was taking. My professor often sent out links to articles that he thought the class would find relevant, both personally and for the class. When I ran across an article on Slate about the inability for millennials to grow up I thought,"how fitting," and composed an email to my professor.

I never sent that email.

I read the article twice, I couldn't tell you why, and the first time through it was a very good assessment of the people I was surrounded by. The second time through hurt.

I am in some ways (thank goodness not all) this person.

Yes, at 26, I am a millennial. I don't like it but as far as discussing demographic I fall firmly into the first decade of this group. I am a product of the internet, of instant, of a very tiny world.

And like most millennials I am lost. You know that, you've read this blog once or twice and are well aware that i can and will bather on about myself and my lack of happiness and my inability to connect with people. I'm basically a narcissist, don't want to think that but it's more true than not so much so that in twenty or so years the DSM of the day will have eliminated narcissism because it'll be the norm.

That little break through isn't special, you've seen it before and you'll see it again.

Here I am at 26 working on what will probably be a second bachelors degree with the hopes of medical school. Part of me is already looking for something new, i am restless and tired of being broke. I like to label all of this as wanderlust.

Wanderlust is now defined as the avoidance of failure .



Does anyone want to fund a spring break trip for me?

The Boomerang Always Comes Back

It has been a year and a half since I have sat in front of a computer and thought, hell with it I'm going to write. It has been a year since I woke up and decided that I couldn't take it any more. It has been ten months since I went on vacation on my own. It has been six months since I quit my job, five since I moved, four since I started back to school full time.

I'd venture to say that it is an improved state, independence, though some days it's no fun, with bills and what not.

I think I'm going to try (eff off Mr. Miyagi) to use this again, if only to keep out of that dark space at the back of my brain box.

Insomnia

I am awake. It is nearly 1:30 AM as I write this and I am in bed, too hot under the covers, too cold with any One layer removed. I am hungry and tired and for the second night in a row I have what feels to be the headache of a hangover despite my lack of boozing. This wakefulness is troubling but not surprising. Tomorrow my youngest sister graduates from high school, so what the fuck does that mean for my life? It seems that in the year and a half that I have been out of school that I have slowly lost all momentum and am finally coming to a full stop. My perpetual position shifting at work neither helps me forward at work or in any other aspect of life. I'm feeling old. The harder I fight the deeper I feel it. I have lost my small handful of friends to stagnation and the lack of an outside driving force has me about over the edge. I still try to have adventures, but more often than not my second ticket goes to complete waste. I'm independent, sure, but it's nice to not be the awkward weirdo standing around by herself at a tiny concert. Being lonely in a crowd is one of those feelings I'm sure everyone feels at some point but I imagine that its the tipping point for crazies and psychopaths (if I end up in a loony bin or incarcerated you're welcome to point back to that thought). I am very far from the Norman Bates-y terror that just crossed your mind but if I ever go there just remind people how long I spent sleeping in a child-sized bed on risers. They'll understand, especially once they find out how many times it just collapsed. I shouldn't be allowed to be up this late. I can only think of how much I'm pissed about family vacation. How much I hate people who have forgotten how to have fun without being wasted. How insane it is that when VI slows my eyes it feels like the world is rocking. How bad my head hurts. I just want chocolate chip cookies. The stats say that 52% of us live at home. It's not comforting. No matter what you say a door somewhere has shut for us and moments like this when my mind is off on a dark that I am honestly pissed. Pissed. It's an ugly feeling, I'd kill for happiness, I'd settle with contentment.

The Boomerang in freeze frame

I have had a bit of an extended hiatus. Things haven't changed. I am still one of the 52% of twenty-somethings living at home and with my 25th birthday fast approaching (ok, it's still five months off but you can see the panic in my eyes from here) I am ready for a change. And by ready I mean if something doesn't change I'll just join a convent and call it a day.

But more on that later.

I'm going to go job searching now.

Some Substantial Discouragement

Today is the 23 month mark from the day I graduated. In the last few weeks I've been fighting the dark pit of job despair, I need more intellectual stimulation and the distance between graduating and today grows ever larger.

The stats are frightening in their own special way, with October bring something like 800,000 new jobs I'm still not in one of those, and with something like 50% of people under 25 living at home I'm about to hit the two year mark for that too. Yes, I have a Care Bears comforter on my bed because I refuse to buy a twin sized bedspread for fear of jinxing myself and never moving out.

I have this weak hope that I'll escape, when I compulsively buy things, they're kitchen things. I have a nearly full kitchen, all matching and well thought out, in bags and boxes in the corner of my bedroom. I am asking for china and a bookshelf for Christmas, even though, if we're being completely honest, I have no use for either.

So my options are looking bleak, but, but! I'll enroll in community college for the spring semester if there is anything worth taking, and I'll apply for grad school. I lack both the fundage and the time for it but it's potentially the one thing that can pull me out of the funk.

It also looks like I'll have to take on a second job. I can't afford to work one job, even if it is sort of full time. Case and point: last month my car broke down and now I have $40 in checking and half my savings. Half is a lot to watch disappear knowing that the real problems your car is having are going to cost you much more than the half you have remaining.

I guess it's just a matter of time before driving on a prayer becomes purchasing a car I can't afford to make payments on, but at least if that's the case I'll have a new car!

Considering again: The Peace Corps.

Falling Flat: Another Boomerang Setback

For my birthday my mom took me to a concert. Her new thing is to not drive and when she asked me to drive I just didn't want to but she cannot handle being lost and lost is a pretty common theme when getting to the specific concert venue. So lost we got and that is where the trouble began.

We're sitting in a long line of traffic and my dash starts lighting up. Started with my check engine light, its on more than off these days anyhow so that didn't worry me, my battery light came one with my brake light, always bad news but even worse when things are beeping and switching on and off, it was only topped with an Anti-Lock Brake System light came on. We did make it to the parking lot. But my car never left.

So now that I have some money in savings I'm going to have to blow it all on repairs and a massive towing bill. Any success I have in regards to getting out seems to be rendered null in the blink of an eye.

My fingers are crossed for good news but if you have a newish car you want to give to me I'll take it!

The Lazy Boomerang

Yesterday, I was at work and one of the regular clients came in and was chatting, they do this sometimes, and he brought up some current news topics. So he sidles on to the Occupy Wall Street protests and that is where the encounter goes south.

I should have learned by now that I am of a different world view than most of the people that I work with, live near, and am forced to interact with in a fake-smiley work way, and at this point I should have learned that the fake smiling gets me farther with people than opening my mouth and expressing an opinion. All that said, I am human and apparently like the abuse that comes with being a young adult that can't afford to live on their own.

So he blabs about the protesters being lazy, no-goods, and says, and this is a real quote, not something like a quote that I'm putting in quotation marks, "This is America, there are plenty of jobs, they can have any job they want." Ok, Herman Cain, whatever you say.

I stupidly said, "we (referring to my fellow teller and myself) only work three days a week," as in the company that we work for, that I actually like, doesn't have the money to employ full-timers, so I'm happy to have my sad hours instead of nothing, while I try to figure out what to do with the BA I earned in three and a half years. Though, I only said the stupid part, so when he called me lazy and said I should get a second job, I probably deserved it, right?

I don't think so.

But we're all entitled to our opinions and Fox News in a legitimate news source so I guess I should be happy he isn't completely ignorant.

For the record, I am many things but I am not lazy. I quit my second job because I was actually spending more money to get to it than I was making. I hated it, I hated myself while being there, I hated how I was treated by customers, I hated how I was treated by fellow employees and I hated how it looked on my resume. So I quit, I am picking up gigs that I wouldn't have been able to do otherwise, I am picking up hours that I wouldn't have been able to pick up otherwise. I am still looking for a job that is both satisfying, interesting and pays enough (because I can't hold out for decently or even reasonably). And I've been called pretty twice in a week by people who had never seen me outside of my former work place. As in, "You're so pretty, that place must of been aweful! Look at you're smile!"

So I don't regret backing down to one part-time job. But walk a mile in my shoes.

Also the man is a small business owner. I don't have much money. He has the same amount as me in all of his accounts combined. He makes daily deposits that are twice the size of my savings account, so somehow I win.

That was mean. But I'm not lazy.