The Newness

My whole life people have been telling me how smart I am. My parents, teachers, friends, you name it. I was always in the accelerated classes, I always had smart friends, I loved to read and always did my homework. My arch nemeses in elementary school made fun of me for using the word, “flabbergasted.” I cried and my fifth grade teacher told me, “They’re just upset that you know a big word that they don’t know.” That provided a small amount of comfort. More comforting was the fact that I knew that someday I would go to college. Then I would get a great job, for which I would get paid a lot of money, and through which I would help make the world a better place. Ahh, to be young.

When I did finally get to college, I felt like I was supposed to be there, but I didn’t have any idea how to pursue a course of study that would be of concrete value once I graduated. (Read: make me money so that I could eventually pay off the colossal student loans I was racking up.) So I studied English, because I love it, and because I thought it would be enough. My dad was telling me, “You should be an engineer.” My mom was telling me, “You should be a nurse!” But, being allergic to math and squeamish at the sight of other people’s bodily fluids, I never seriously considered either suggestion as a possibility. Funny how if I had done either of those things, which I certainly could have, I would be in a much different place right now.

But those subtle suggestions did make me think more seriously about whatever my future career would eventually be, and so I asked my advisor, “I am a little worried about getting a job once I graduate. I know don’t want to be a teacher. What kind of jobs can I get with this degree?” Then he, like a dutiful advisor to a second semester junior in college, did what he was supposed to do. He told me what I needed to hear to stay on course and graduate on time, “Your degree will be incredibly versatile! You’ll have outstanding communication and writing skills, and that is invaluable in any number of professions.” I, being naïve, thought to myself, OK! My advisor said it’s alright, so that must mean it’s alright. Sigh. And everyone, myself included, thought I was so smart.

Chris once told me how, after he and my parents dropped me off at the airport when I left for Ecuador, that my mom said, “That girl amazes me. She did this all by herself.” When he told me that I was like, “Of course I did! Duh!” My philosophy has always been: If there is something that you want to do with your life, you do it. Go for it now, when you can, otherwise it might end up being something that you’ll regret not having tried for the rest of your life. If it turns out well, then great! If it ends disasterously, like almost all of my romantic endeavors up til this point have, then you will have experiences from which to grow. Either way, win or lose, you don’t ever really lose.

Somehow, after over two years of working an absolutely thankless and intensely stressful job – in which I was using only the most limited parts of my brain – I seemed to forget all about my grand philosophy. Shaun always encouraged me, “Babe, just start looking for a new job! There are jobs to be had in Detroit, no matter what the newspapers say! You’re so smart, you can do it!” But I never did. I was so miserable, and I knew in my heart that he was right, but I just never applied for anything. I made halfass attempts at looking, but of course I never found anything that was, “good enough.” I started thinking about graduate school – which turned out to be a good thing, since I found something I am incredibly excited about – but at first that was just another way to avoid thinking about getting a new job.

And then the shit, as they say, hit the fan. For those of you that don’t know, which is probably most of you, I had a minor meltdown earlier this summer. I found myself having panic attacks – at work in the bathroom, in my car. Never when anyone else was around. At first I didn’t even know what they were. Shaun and I had broken up, I was living back with my parents, my job sucked ass, most of my friends were living elsewhere, everything was basically shit. I quit answering my phone. I started lying to people. I watched an obscene amount of television. Then I got strep throat, and when I went to the doctor I had a total emotional breakdown in her office. She handed me a box of Kleenex, gave me antibiotics for the strep, and antidepressants for the rest of it. I went home and checked myself into therapy.

Then I did the one thing I’d really needed to do from the beginning. I sat down at my computer, dusted off my resume, and sat down to find a new job. Funny how life happens sometimes. The very first job I applied for I ended up getting. And it is A-M-A-Z-I-N-G. For privacy reasons you will see that I will be much more discrete about this job that my previous one, but I now work for the United Way for Southeastern Michigan. My office is right downtown, which is fun (and convenient for school), I work with Kira, and most importantly, I get to use my brain! I leave work every day feeling like I am making Detroit a better community to live in. The job didn’t fall out of the sky into my lap as I imagined it would when I graduated from high school, but it’s mine now and that is the important thing.

So, the newness that is happening in my life right is all good. I have learned a lot about myself and how I handle (and don’t handle) stress in my life. I’ve also realized that, even though I absolutely hated it while I was there, I learned a lot about working in a professional environment while I was at Comcast. I also learned that there is a lot more to life than just making as much money as you can by screwing little old ladies into buying digital cable that they don’t know how to use, and then charging them another $20 that they don’t have to come out and put their TVs back on channel 3.