Choices

Learning to Live on the Island of Confidence

~ crossroadtrippers ~ Leave a comment

cool_island-wide

I had an interview this past Thursday. I wouldn’t have applied for the job if I didn’t think I could do it and might have a slight chance of enjoying it. However, once I started talking to the gentlemen conducting the interview, I started to feel my sureness slipping. With every word they spoke, I drifted farther away from the Island of Confidence. By the end of the interview, I’d floated miles away, couldn’t even see the beach, and I felt bad for wasting their time. I also felt like an idiot because I knew what they’re probably thinking. Why did that girl even bother? Wow. What a waste of time.

This happens just about every time I go in for an interview. If it doesn’t, it’s because I really don’t want the job in the first place. The questions asked I approach calmly, coolly, and almost always get a job offer—an offer I always turn down. I know. I don’t make any sense to me either. I mean, I get why I nail those interviews where I’m relaxed and feeling like nothing important hangs in the balance. But why do I even apply if I know I don’t really want the job? Maybe it’s because I need the ego boost of knowing that someone still finds me employable, but more likely it’s that those jobs lie within my comfort zone. When I apply for something outside of my comfort zone, that’s when I flounder and sink, miles from shore with the Island of Confidence a mere dot on the horizon.

Unfortunately, I have a comfort zone that lies in the least lucrative positions. My bar is set low. But how do I get comfortable with bumping that bar higher? How do I build myself a house among the trees on the Island of Confidence and live there? Well, I’m doggy paddling through the waves, heading back toward land. It will take me a while to get there. I’m not a good swimmer. But I can see the beach and I know just where I’ll set up residence.

 
~L~

Filling In The Blank

~ crossroadtrippers ~ 2 Comments

It feels like the harder I try to figure out what my next move should be, the more entrenched in confusion and frustration I become. Do I keep cleaning houses and writing, working to get published, or do I throw myself into a small business venture, expanding and promoting my cleaning services and give up some of my writing time, or do I get an unrelated job and put the writing on a back burner, or…

I have this vision of where I want to be, but it’s like I’m looking at it from across a bottomless chasm; I’m on one side and my dream life is on the other. The most frustrating part is that I could build a bridge but I don’t have the materials or tools, my education seemingly a hammer made of cardboard, a nail gun spitting marshmallows. So, I stand there, looking down, kicking pebbles over the edge and getting more and more pissed at myself.

I remember a particular crossroad of the past that was annoyingly similar to the one I stand at today. When I was growing up, I didn’t have a clue what I wanted to be. Looking back now, I don’t recall ever telling anyone “I want to be a _________ when I grow up.” It could be all that Candy Crush I’ve played, or the numerous drowse-inducing pills I take, but I seriously don’t remember aspiring to be anything. When I got to high school and it was expected that I figure out what I would make out my life and study at college, I scrambled to come up with something to placate my guidance counselor, my friends, my family. I’d always loved Science, particularly Biology and Anatomy as well as animals. I’d also always thought I might like a surplus of money, so I opted to study Biology and then move on to a veterinary program. It made sense to my logical side, to the bookish girl graduating sixth in her class, to my pushy guidance counselor. But when it came time to apply, I balked. I’ve always blamed the severe clinical depression I experienced my senior year, but maybe it was more than that keeping me from wanting to run off to college the fall after high school ended. Maybe I realized that wasn’t where my passion lay.

If I had been paying attention, my path was more obvious than dumping that ridiculous boy I dated when I was sixteen who wore his two inches of hair slicked and pulled back into a tiny ponytail and told me his uncle was in the Chicago Mafia. As long as I could, I’d been writing. As a child, I wrote stories on wide ruled loose leaf, tying the pages together with yarn and doing my own illustrations. I read the classics—and loved them. I memorized Robert Frost’s “Nothing Gold Can Stay” when I read it in The Outsiders. I’ve always been the person my friends ask to proofread their papers. I was asked to join the Quiz Bowl Team in eighth grade because of my affinity for literature. I spent the summer between seventh and eighth grade in my room writing a novel length piece I eventually reread and ended up scrapping. The signs were always there as to what was in my heart.

I went to college two years later than most of my classmates and I began a Bio degree, still refusing to acknowledge the obvious. I was about a year and a half into school and taking a Genetics class I was figuring on failing. That subject had been my weak spot in high school as well. I was thinking a lot about the choices I’d made. The same time I was starting college, I was moving out for the first time. I was working part time and studying some of the most difficult information I’d ever read. In lab, I had to mingle with my fellow Bio majors, Chemistry, Anatomy, and various other science majors.

We were doing a lab that involved fingerprinting and my lab partner couldn’t get her prints to be anything but smudges. I may have made a joke that insinuated that she’d rubbed her prints off with excessive biblical-ish knowledge of the male nether region. She may have given me the nastiest look anyone’s ever shot my direction.

At any rate, I realized I didn’t fit in with these doctors-in-the-making. It was that feeling coupled with my sinking grade in Genetics that pushed me to make a change.

After years of thinking that my writing was just for fun, I decided to make it my life. It wasn’t an easy decision. I knew I would be forfeiting my employability, mostly because I had no intentions of pursuing a career in teaching. That had to be the first question anyone would ask me after they learned that I was an English major. The. Same. Question. Every. Time.

“So, you’re going to be a teacher?” they’d ask.

“No. I’m going to write books. Maybe work for a publisher. You know?” I’d reply.

And no, they didn’t know. And apparently, neither did I. While I did write a book, the chance to work for a publisher sailed away when I decided to stay in my recession-battered state, in a county where opportunities go to die. I have stayed because my family needs me and I’ve always seen this as my home. Also, I used to think I could never leave because of the friendships I’d forged over a lifetime. Not anymore. Amidst the self-discovery involved in pursuing this fire burning in my core, I’ve also come to understand that support is hard to come by. Writing is a career of a different color in that you can’t excel at it on your own. Well, most of us can’t. We rely on the knowledge of others and their opinions to make us better. In the beginning stage it’s family and friends and later it becomes agents, publishers, and editors. It’s hard to get to that later stage when you’ve been let down in the beginning.

So, my current crossroad is not only whether I stay and clean or stay and write but whether I stay at all. The opportunity exists to go anywhere. My husband is in a high demand occupation and it wouldn’t be difficult for him to land something he loves virtually anywhere. The fear of leaving behind everything I know is fading with every frustrating day. I’m to the point where loading up my grandma and my mom like The Beverly Hillbillies is not completely beyond the realm of possibility. At least then I’d be making a choice. With that choice, I’d finally have the opportunity to construct my bridge and get over that canyon that lies between me and what fills my dreams.

~L~

Year End Reflections

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I married him in the late of summer. He didn’t want to see his bride in sleeveless so I wore a long sleeved white dress in the hot of day. My hair was down, sweltering on my neck. It couldn’t be put up, it wouldn’t have been suitable for him. All the details of that day were as he desired. The floral arrangements, the bridal band, and bridesmaids’ dresses were all in his favorite color. My special color was too feminine for his special day.  Everything was suited for a day as he dreamed and we set off for a honeymoon as he always imagined.

This was the first day of the rest of his life. It was the  first day ending my independent life. There was no longer a “me” but an us where he decided what was best for the two of us. I was there that day. I stood before the closed sanctuary doors sick with fear. I recalled the day he proposed. I wanted to run then and I wanted to run at that moment. I thought I was in too deep but I was expected to consider his feelings first in all things.

I was expected to relinquish myself and become his wife. In that moment, on that day, I inherited the responsibilities of a wife. I was solely responsible for cleaning, laundry, and meal preparation while remaining physically pleasing and readily available to him. There was no fair turn in the marriage as my attire was rebuked down to my undergarments while he slowly allowed himself a great deal of comfort with his hygiene and appearance. The small requests continued until larger uncomfortable desires were expected to be met with silent submission. After several years I no longer thought about what I wanted, I just did as he asked. My hair was to a length he preferred, my eyebrows were favored at an appropriate width, and money was never at my disposal. He refused to part with the mutual earnings to allow spending that would not  be a benefit to him. I worked full time but found myself in tears when making the agonizing choice to purchase much needed items, even if it were for my career. I was also not allowed the security of a cell phone after accepting a job forty miles from home. When my salary met his own, my position was downplayed as subjacent to his own.

I was not perfect but I don’t believe he thought what he was doing was wrong. We both had flaws. I was immature and I had a temper. When my requests to talk about marital issues were met with complete silence, I would blow up in frustration. For him, the only problems with our marriage were the issues I refused to drop. The bad fights started with requests to put down the toilet seat, brushing teeth before bed, or my desire to include my family and friends in my life. For me, marriage became about isolation, unresolved issues and silence. He thought his marriage was perfect. He was shocked when I finally left.

The weeks before I left became littered with fights and broken furniture. One afternoon we had the last fight of our marriage. I left for my parent’s home and he never came for me. He spent his time calling me and asking me to come home or making accusatory calls to me while I was at work. He wanted me back but was angry that I was not doing as he asked. He also had too much pride to follow his wife to the ends of the Earth, or a mere few miles up the road.

Some say divorce is worse than death. I can agree with this on some level because running into an ex can almost be like seeing a ghost. I haven’t seen mine since our disillusion was final. I was thankful we had no children thus making the separation of our lives a clean cut.

You may wonder why this would be the subject of my next post in light of the holiday season. New Year’s Eve fifteen years ago, I was laying on the bathroom floor my ex and I shared wondering if I wanted my life to continue. I heard the laughter from the party going on in the basement beneath and felt it was not for me. Against my natural desire to live grew this terrifying thought grown out of depression. Marriage was not like most things in my young life, it would continue until death. I realized I had no second chance and I should have felt more desire for my husband and my marriage. I had ignored my heart and did what I thought was “right.”

I stayed for a few more New Year’s Eve parties until I matured and made the difficult decision to make our separation permanent. The day I left, I had no idea how I would come to that choice but when he never came for me, it was easier to make. I had to be worth the fight.

………….

Years later, I married him on a cold spring day in the dress of my dreams (it was sleeveless) and prepared confidently, knowing however I came down the aisle, he unconditionally loved me. My heart and my mind were no longer at conflict.

During the approach of the holiday season, many thoughts turn to resolutions or putting behind a bad year. Isn’t it silly to think the same problems won’t follow through to the next year or resolutions will be easier to keep because we can open another calendar? Making a resolution to run away from problems does not work any better than running from them the remainder of the year. What happened to accepting the year we were given and using the short-falls of that year for our betterment?

My New Year’s advice for you: look back and enjoy this year. Do not be in a rush to discard it. Fifteen years ago when I was laying on my bathroom floor, I lost hope. My life was certainly going to be more of the same disappointment but that disappointment led me to where I am. My husband was worth the previous years I was ready to forget. If I would have known the heartache I experienced would bring me to where I am, I would have met it with more joy. There can be joy in our sadness. Unfortunately we don’t realize all that is meant for us until it has come to pass. Don’t regret an entire year based on difficulty, remember the clay is stronger when burned by fire. The heat may sometimes be intense but it is preparation for many things yet to come. Be patient. True happiness is always worth the wait.

Happy New Year! Wishing you the confidence to make the hard decisions and waiting for the best return the new year has to offer.

*d*

Ignoring a Five Year Plan

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Next year marks my ten year wedding anniversary. This is significant for a number of reasons. For the significance of this post, it means my husband and I have been together for a couple rounds of “where do you think we will be in five years.”
This used to be such an entertaining game. Even before he and I met, a sported round of this game was always worth a spin. Here is how the three previous rounds have summed up since I was somehow declared an adult.
Round one took some casualties. I lost friendships and a marriage but I gained the confidence to live on my own and try to start asking what I wanted with the next five years.
Five years later and I was remarried. I had two children. We were both employed and happy. It was also in this five years we found out one of our children had a rare and incurable disease. Five years down the road began to look more bleak.
Sadly my husband and I no longer question where we will be in five years. My life is very different than I could have imagined and it demands that I live for today. Planning tomorrow ended years ago in a hospital room when we realized how quickly today can change tomorrow.
Five years from now is scarier than it used to be. The older I get, the less I would want to know. In everything there is joy but only with a share of heartbreak. I think I can wait for it all.
Today I will start a new game called, “making today’s decision at the crossroad count.”
*d*

Five Year Plan

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When we graduated high school and were making plans about where we were going to be in five years, I don’t believe any of us really had a clue. I know I didn’t. I certainly wouldn’t have predicted that I’d be living with a cheating drug abuser, finishing up my last year of college and my English degree, and working four small part-time jobs just to be able to afford Dollar Menu dinners every night. Nor would I have been able to foretell the five years after that that included my druggie boyfriend leaving me for my cousin, me re-living my early 20’s out on the dance floor of the local dive bar, and numerous gentlemen floating through my life. None of that is what I imagined. The last five years has been a surprise too. The pleasant kind. I met my husband, finished writing a novel I started in 2005, and quit my job to—well, mostly I quit because it was awful. Also, I wanted to finish my book. I had intentions of getting a job once the novel was done, but finishing it made me want to be a part of the writing community. It made me want to see if I could make money doing what I loved instead of barely being paid to do what I hated. Even though I’ve found that it’s a long way from the last keystroke on your manuscript to the first paycheck, I’m excited to have come this far. This whole experience has pushed me to make choices about who I am, what I want, and where I’m going.

It’s a scary thing to be 33 and not have a clue where your life is headed—to be staring down the barrel of Life, pointed right in your face. Every day I feel inadequate and incapable and dare I say, like a failure. I wonder where I go from here. What’s next for me? Where will I be in five years? The only thing to do is to make a choice and pursue it like my life depends on it. I have to accept that just because I stumble, it doesn’t mean I’ve chosen the wrong path. There are bumps in every road.

~L~