on how the world makes failures of us all
Aug. 29th, 2007 12:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
aruanMy mother is reinventing herself for the fourth time in her life. First was giving up an award-winning hairdressing career for homemaking when she became pregnant with me; second was moving to the States with my brother and me, not speaking a word of English; third was getting her Realtor's license a few years ago and divorcing my stepfather, and now she's starting nursing school in the fall with the goal of opening her own assisted-living facility. She turned 51 this year.
Despite all that, she doesn't feel like she's accomplished anything. On paper, she's had two failed marriages, doesn't own the house she lives in, left the only country that will ever be home for her, has very little savings and will have to settle for a nine-hour layover next month as likely her one chance to see Paris. And it makes me unspeakably sad that that's how she sees it, when I know what she overcame between the lines just to be alive today. Those two kids? Smart and successful. She learned a new language and got certification in a field that remains incomprehensible to me. She cooked meals when she didn't have time to sleep, she took us to school and dance and baseball and told us nothing mattered if we weren't happy. Life without her would've been incomprehensible to me then, and empty now. She made every sacrifice - the fact that the world doesn't value her contributions shouldn't make them less meaningful.
But in another way, she did exactly what the real world demands - working, raising children, routines and schedules and wages. There's a reason why the highlight reels of one's life fit into a flash before death. Choosing to carry on every day through that kind of numbing mundacity seems more and more impressive. What would she have needed to accomplish to feel like she made good use of those 51 years? What does anyone? Become the CEO of a company? Cure cancer? Raise a family? Climb a mountain? Outside of comic books, there isn't much of a demand for saving the world, so feats get measured on a much smaller, different scale.
But that scale should never be getting out of bed in the morning and making it to work. Yet as much as I hate my current employment and Lakeland and all its accoutrements, I've been waffling on the job search. After an especially bad day, I'll sit down at the keyboard and do a little more work on my resume and dream up the next career I will have, which differs depending on the week: Air Force officer, campaign worker, park ranger, tour guide, librarian, computer engineer, civil engineer, public relations, convention support staff, TV/movie set worker, waitress, ski instructor, flight attendant, lawyer, Disney park worker, Starbucks barista, etc. But then I get up the next day and go back to work, and it's not so bad, or even one of the rare good days, and I think, every job has its bad days.
But my mom reminded me of the danger that every day, one becomes a little more numb to all the things one hates about one's situation. I remember in the early months of my job the rebellion building slowly inside of me, then ranting and crying and making grand plans to one day get on Interstate 4 and just drive. I remember researching job options, buying a copy of What Color Is Your Parachute?, thinking about finding a career counselor in the area. Eventually though, it tapered into dragging my feet getting ready to go in to work, getting increasingly lax about the business part of my casual wardrobe. I can't actually do less than my best when it comes to the stories, mostly on behalf of the people involved, but short of that, there should've at least been a talking-to about the rest. Not a word from anyone. Thanks, hiring freeze!
Keep going like that though, and I'll wake up one day just like a lot of other people in my office, wondering how those 10 years passed by. But unless we take it upon ourselves to make that move - not pushing significant others to get jobs elsewhere, not hoping the car is irreparable to finally breathe the air of communal transit, not wanting to finally have one of the dozen sketchy people I meet in a week threaten me (no, really, I've had that kind of wild thought) - the likelihood of a sufficiently severely jarring event is slim at best.
It's not because I'm afraid to leave. Everything is still as easy as it seemed in high school - want to do something? Go out and do it! What's stopping you? It's just that now, I know a little bit more about the realities of living on my own and holding down a job and making a life work. It's not always easy, and it's certainly not cheap. You hear about people being unemployed for months, taking jobs out of desperation, working three of them to make ends meet. It's not as if journalism is a terribly robust field at the moment, either. And while no, I thankfully don't have any terribly expensive addictions, debt or children relying on me, there's still me. The bottom line is, my job pays decently, and not just for a recent college graduate; it offers health insurance and 401(k) and all those things I'm supposed to want from my workplace. I put six years, including my entire college education, into getting where I am, and have what most of my graduating class only dreamt of: a full-time job at a good-size, reputable paper. Giving up what everyone says I should strive for feels so counterintuitive. And yet, I'm unhappy.
My biggest problem though is that I don't know what my problem is. Is it journalism as a whole, or just where I'm working now? And if it's the former, what do I want to do instead? Is it enough to start applying or do I need to go back to school? Where do I want to go? What standard of living am I willing to accept?
Is 24 too early for a midlife crisis?
Despite all that, she doesn't feel like she's accomplished anything. On paper, she's had two failed marriages, doesn't own the house she lives in, left the only country that will ever be home for her, has very little savings and will have to settle for a nine-hour layover next month as likely her one chance to see Paris. And it makes me unspeakably sad that that's how she sees it, when I know what she overcame between the lines just to be alive today. Those two kids? Smart and successful. She learned a new language and got certification in a field that remains incomprehensible to me. She cooked meals when she didn't have time to sleep, she took us to school and dance and baseball and told us nothing mattered if we weren't happy. Life without her would've been incomprehensible to me then, and empty now. She made every sacrifice - the fact that the world doesn't value her contributions shouldn't make them less meaningful.
But in another way, she did exactly what the real world demands - working, raising children, routines and schedules and wages. There's a reason why the highlight reels of one's life fit into a flash before death. Choosing to carry on every day through that kind of numbing mundacity seems more and more impressive. What would she have needed to accomplish to feel like she made good use of those 51 years? What does anyone? Become the CEO of a company? Cure cancer? Raise a family? Climb a mountain? Outside of comic books, there isn't much of a demand for saving the world, so feats get measured on a much smaller, different scale.
But that scale should never be getting out of bed in the morning and making it to work. Yet as much as I hate my current employment and Lakeland and all its accoutrements, I've been waffling on the job search. After an especially bad day, I'll sit down at the keyboard and do a little more work on my resume and dream up the next career I will have, which differs depending on the week: Air Force officer, campaign worker, park ranger, tour guide, librarian, computer engineer, civil engineer, public relations, convention support staff, TV/movie set worker, waitress, ski instructor, flight attendant, lawyer, Disney park worker, Starbucks barista, etc. But then I get up the next day and go back to work, and it's not so bad, or even one of the rare good days, and I think, every job has its bad days.
But my mom reminded me of the danger that every day, one becomes a little more numb to all the things one hates about one's situation. I remember in the early months of my job the rebellion building slowly inside of me, then ranting and crying and making grand plans to one day get on Interstate 4 and just drive. I remember researching job options, buying a copy of What Color Is Your Parachute?, thinking about finding a career counselor in the area. Eventually though, it tapered into dragging my feet getting ready to go in to work, getting increasingly lax about the business part of my casual wardrobe. I can't actually do less than my best when it comes to the stories, mostly on behalf of the people involved, but short of that, there should've at least been a talking-to about the rest. Not a word from anyone. Thanks, hiring freeze!
Keep going like that though, and I'll wake up one day just like a lot of other people in my office, wondering how those 10 years passed by. But unless we take it upon ourselves to make that move - not pushing significant others to get jobs elsewhere, not hoping the car is irreparable to finally breathe the air of communal transit, not wanting to finally have one of the dozen sketchy people I meet in a week threaten me (no, really, I've had that kind of wild thought) - the likelihood of a sufficiently severely jarring event is slim at best.
It's not because I'm afraid to leave. Everything is still as easy as it seemed in high school - want to do something? Go out and do it! What's stopping you? It's just that now, I know a little bit more about the realities of living on my own and holding down a job and making a life work. It's not always easy, and it's certainly not cheap. You hear about people being unemployed for months, taking jobs out of desperation, working three of them to make ends meet. It's not as if journalism is a terribly robust field at the moment, either. And while no, I thankfully don't have any terribly expensive addictions, debt or children relying on me, there's still me. The bottom line is, my job pays decently, and not just for a recent college graduate; it offers health insurance and 401(k) and all those things I'm supposed to want from my workplace. I put six years, including my entire college education, into getting where I am, and have what most of my graduating class only dreamt of: a full-time job at a good-size, reputable paper. Giving up what everyone says I should strive for feels so counterintuitive. And yet, I'm unhappy.
My biggest problem though is that I don't know what my problem is. Is it journalism as a whole, or just where I'm working now? And if it's the former, what do I want to do instead? Is it enough to start applying or do I need to go back to school? Where do I want to go? What standard of living am I willing to accept?
Is 24 too early for a midlife crisis?
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Date: September 8th, 2007 05:12 am (UTC)It is really hard for me, raised primarily in the American culture and school system, to think that far outside the box. You're absolutely right, we're programmed to follow paths, achieve certain goals (college, etc.), commit to companies, and that you can be happy if you just do these things, but when you come out the other end and you're not, people have a tendency to throw up their hands and not have much to offer either. The advice seems solid enough, but in practice leaves a lot unaccounted for.
I'm glad you made a good decision, if an uncertain one - your health should never be secondary to anything. And that's what bad jobs do, they wear you down physically and emotionally, and you're either walking around sick or crying all the time. Yeah. Now if I can just take our good advice already...