As I sit here typing I am watching the clock tick closer and closer to that dreaded time. Midnight, well 12:01am to be precise will make it April 5th … my birthday. I am not handling this “milestone” well, in fact I am a total wreak. I have been fluctuating between depression and denial since I got back from vacation. My friends keep assuring me that it is just a number and I will feel the same when I wake up Friday morning as I did on Thursday, and logically I know they are right but that does not stop the rampant thoughts of failure that have been plaguing me for the past 6 months.
1. I am a bartender, I was a bartender in college and I am still one now 7 years later. I am currently doing nothing with any of my 3 degrees and I am still living nearly paycheck to paycheck. Friends response: There is no perfect path, we live our life to live it and make memories not to make money. And while I know what he is saying is true and most of the time I do my best to live by that motto it is just not helping to alleviate the panic at this time. I am not a very monetary person, I don’t really go for the flashy and sparkly but I do like nice things, and I love to travel. I always thought that by the time I was 30 I would be well established enough in my career (currently non existent at this time) that I would have the means to 1. be a homeowner (still renting) 2. to be able to travel with out taking a year to save 3. not wonder how next months bills are going to be paid. I don’t blame this entirely on me, the economy sucks but that is a rant for another time. (*wink* have something in the works *wink*)
Now don’t get me wrong I do enjoy my job but I just didn’t think I would still be doing it at this point in my life. I have tried to get a job back in the social services field since moving to Texas, I just have never heard back. I have applied for 8 different positions, some at the same level I was working when I left Iowa, 1 a step above and even some entry level that I worked right after college. I applied for several of those positions multiple times because they were re-listed. I never heard back from a single one. I don’t understand, I talked to my references and even they said they were never contacted. Apparently I am not a worth while candidate for the job. I did meet a women one might at the bar I work at who is a CPS (Child Protection Services) Worker for Comal County and told her about my situation, the first thing she asked me was if I am bi-lingual (do I speak Spanish) and I do not. She told me that was my problem. That most of the kids who are wards of the state in South Texas are non-English speaking so I was not considered.
2. I am not married. Now don’t get me wrong I am in a wonderful relationship with a man that makes me very happy, but growing up you always imagined that you would be married way before you were 30!! I even made a pact with my friend Joe that if we were both single and unattached by the time we both turned 30 we would marry each other because back then 30 was ages away and you didn’t want to end up a spinster “on the shelf” so to speak. Luckily I don’t have to marry Joe as I have a great man in my life, Oh yeah and Joe is happily engaged and has a beautiful little girl. But still it is another one of those things that I expected to have accomplished by this point, and haven't (you see the trend here, another failure) But seriously there is also the small even side of my screaming “at your age what right do you have dating a 24 year old?” and how do I answer that? Well because we make each other happy, but I still wonder if I am in the wrong … Friends response: Don't dive into that line of thinking. It's a bottomless pit. Society puts the pressure on us to make us feel that that is the norm, when in fact it isn't. Having goals like marriage/career is great, but don't feel like you HAVE to have them by a certain age. 30 is not a milestone in life, merely a number. I see what he is saying, and I know that its true but I still feel like a failure. *Funny side note this bit of advice came from Xavvov, yep ex-fiancé Xavvov.*
3. I really don’t know what I want to be “when I grow up.” You all remember this question from when you were young; from distant relatives at holiday parties trying to find something to talk to you about, or teachers at school, even people you meet at church. “And what do you want to be when you grow up?” Your answer always changed depending on what was exciting at the time with answers like “a princess” or “a mommy” to “a police officer” or “a movie star” to “a lawyer or doctor” (yeah didn’t think about the 7 years of college then did we). Everyone asks this questions but no one tells us how to go about finding the answer, or better yet when is “grown up” at what point in our lives are we supposed to hit that magic switch when suddenly everything makes sense and we have our shit in order. BECAUSE I would really love to find that button. This is the biggest reason I have not gone back to grad school. I would LOVE to, I so enjoyed being in school I love learning but I don’t know what to specialize in because I don’t know what I want to do for the rest of my life. Some days I feel like I have my entire life ahead of me (which logically I do) other days I feel like I should have had this all figured out years ago and since I don’t I am doomed to float though life as a half ass failure. Friends Response: are you happy with what you've experienced out of life? if yes, then its not wasted or a failure. Yeah I don’t really have a rebuttal to this one, he is right but I still can’t seem to ditch the doubts that are chasing me.
Well it is 10 minutes to at this point, so I am going to polish off the rest of my bottle of wine and then go to bed and wait for the end of the world to come.
Slàinte,
Kat
