I've found that my unemployed life is not so much better than my employed life. It's still ridiculously routine and horribly mundane. I do enjoy spending the extra time with my husband but I find myself waking in the morning and going "now what?" This isn't a feeling I particularly enjoy. I just don't know what to do with myself. I know that sounds cliché but I can't really think of any other way to put it.
Is it really possible that, at almost @28 years old, I still have no idea who I really am? I mean, really. Looking back, it seems I knew more about myself when I was @21 than I do now. How is that even remotely possible? Maybe I'm approaching an early mid-life crisis. Maybe I'm just fucked in the head. Both seem logical explanations for how I feel.
After spending five years on a crusade to become a mother and then suddenly halting all efforts, I just feel completely lost. How could I have let something with such uncertain results consume me? Define me, even? Maybe I've never really known who I am and maybe becoming a mom was a way to finally firmly define myself.
I spend so much time bemused by thoughts of what the outcome of my life is going to be. There's an underlying problem and that problem is the urge to self destruct. I began my self destructive behavior at a very young age and carried it, possibly, to a point of no return. This sounds strange, so let me explain. I had no ambitions in High School. I remember having some ambition as a @12 year old to write. And sometime around the 8th grade I suddenly had an ambition to become a pediatrician. But somewhere after the 8th grade, I just started to implode. And I've been on this slow-as-fuck self destruct sequence ever since. But I digress. I had no ambitions in High School to become anything. I didn't take my SAT's. I didn't talk to my counselor about colleges or careers. Then I got booted out of my High School in Germany and sent to Fort Knox to try and finish there. Eventually, I dropped out in favor of drinking and hanging out with my new degenerate "friends". Truth be told, I never expected to make it past @21, thus, I never planned for my future.
I guess it appears, on the surface, that I'm trying to make something of my life now. After all, I am pursuing a college degree, right? But there are times that I'm not even sure I want to work in IT for the rest of my life. Like I said, I can't really tell you what it is that I want to spend the rest of my life doing. When I was younger, I was too absorbed in the now to really think about the future (living in a constant state of suicidality does that to a person, you know) and now that I'm older I am afraid that I'm simply running out of time. I guess that's part of the reason I decided to pursue a degree in Information Technology. It's a widespread, ever growing industry and I knew the career and earning potential were there. (In all honesty, what I'd really love to do is just be a freelance web developer and work from home but I haven't the experience or the credibility to do so. It takes years of experience in coding to really earn any kind of money in web development. It's a very competitive field and you have to be the best of the best to just get a job doing web development, much less do freelance work. Still, this has been my pipe dream since I was @20 and introduced to the spectacular world of HTML.)
Like anyone else in this world, I just want to be (and stay) happy. But at this juncture, I am completely obvlivious as to what it's going to take to get me there.
Sunday, August 3, 2008
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5 comments:
Liss, can you create websites and templates and such? I just know of quite a few little personal websites of women who create blog templates for people for money. Might be a way to get started. Or, maybe that's not really what you want to do, but I thought I'd mention it.
I'm sorry you are so discouraged. I think no one really knows if they want to do their "career" for the entire rest of their life. You just go do it, and see where life takes you. Change can happen when it comes. Just because you are finishing your degree and looking for a job in that field doesn't mean you are committing your next 35 years to it. It's a place to start. And that's what you need. A place to start. Purpose.
Praying you can put one foot in front of the other and find that job you're looking for.
It's amazing how much we lose of ourselves while in the throes of IF and TTC. I am still partly stuck in it, having an FF membership still so I can talk to a few friends. I want so desperately to leave it behind, but would have to break friendships to do so.
And it's hard to reclaim yourself. You try and think back to who you were before TTC and you can't revert back to that. You are older now, wiser, more cynical? Less cynical? It's almost like you are starting over at 23 again and have to speed your way through those years to catch up with the other women your age.
And I wouldn't worry about doing IT your whole life. Most people make career changes. My DH is an excellent in demand programmer and he loves it, but even he can't imagine programming for the rest of his life.
I have been unemployed for three years. I go through spurts of being desperate for a job and applying like mad. Then I go through times where i love my life and get lazy when it comes to job hunting.
I will tell you, that I have gone through the same line of questioning myself. Right now, with no work and no outside pressures right in your face, is the best time to do that soul searching.
I have found that the best way to know what I like and want is to be isolated from everyone else's opinions. Sometimes the isolation offered by unemployment is really nice. You can finally just BE for a while.
Hey Liss, good to find you in blog world!
I agree with Steph. I haven't held down a full time job since I started TTC. For a while (ok about 2 years) it made me feel like a real loser. Especially when I would go out somewhere with my DH and his friends would say "and what do you do?" Um, "have sex as often as possible and weep into my hanky when only one line comes up each month? How about you?" I don't think so.
But at the moment I am seeing unemployment as an opportunity to explore any interest that takes my fancy. The 'always wanted to..." pile. I started with cooking and gardening and have recently branched out into developing my interest in literacy teaching by tutoring once a week. I also take Bridge lessons (!) and I am developing my writing as well. I have no idea where I'll end up with any of the things I do, I'm just having fun doing them. I kind of gave up wondering what I 'would be when I grew up' when I decided all I really wanted to be was a mother. And now I am very much in the middle of my existential crisis, brought to a head by really having to face that childless option. So I hear what you are going through. It's a soul searching kind of thing. Or at least, it is for me.
The writing book I am reading (by Julia Cameron: The right to write) suggests that you don't wait to be in the mood to write, you don't think up something to write, you just begin where you are, and do it.
I think you could almost translate that into any area of your life. Begin where you are right now and just go from there. Go anywhere. Just start moving. And if you REALLY feel that nothing inspires or motivates you to move in any direction, then great- what a perfect opportunity to start meditating!! Now that REALLY works with where you are now.
Perhaps telescope in from taking the long view and just look at the moment. My Mum always says, by the mile it's a trial, by the yard it's hard, but by the inch it's a cinch.
Ok, enough with the cliches. But maybe there is a little bit of wisdom in them somewhere? I'll get down off the soapbox now. :-)
The last sentence hit the nail right on the head if you ask me!
All the other girls pretty much covered it.
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