There's a line in the song Ribs (by Lorde) "I've never felt more alone. It feels so scary getting old." This nails it for me. Right on the head. The plans I made for my life are crumpled paper in the rubbish bin. The goals I had made when I was in high school are completely gone; blown away by the winds of my past. The future is a four way stop in front of me and there's not a single road sign telling me which direction to go. And the saddest part about this all is the lack of a passenger to join me on this helter skelter journey.
Now, don't get me wrong-it's not that I lack direction. Just the opposite, actually. I still know that I was put forth upon this earth to help others and to put words to pages. Both of which I do as much as I possibly can. The rest however... The rest is a fog covered parking lot at night. As much as I project the illusion that I have my shit together, I really don't.
A friend of mine asked me recently how many jobs I've had in my life. Thirteen, if my memory serves me right. Possibly fourteen. Maybe even fifteen, if I stop and think about it. In the professional world, that could make me a liability; but the truth of the matter is that I'm a dedicated hard worker. The issue has been companies that I've worked for and the bosses I've had. Not to mention I've had my share of seasonal jobs. The first company that I worked for right out of high school I remained with for six and a half years until the company folded. To this day it was and is the best job I've ever had; and the one I had the most promotions with. But since then, I've never held a position for more than a year and a half (with the exception of a temp agency that periodically sent me assignments).
I'm at the point where I need some stability in my life. During the time I was in Texas, I was actually in the process of settling down and finally moving forward with my life. Yet, there were some circumstances (mainly caused by me being desperately homesick the entire time I was down there) that brought me back to the Pacific Northwest. Where I became an aimless tumbleweed once more. I'm tired of it and I'm way too old for it. I'm not in my 20's anymore, where not having a clue about your future is par for the course. I both need and want a stable career; and believe it or not, a steady relationship. Mr. Bachelor is looking for his +1.
I love to travel. I love to hike and slip away and escape. But that should be stuff for my days off-not a state of being. Being a vagabond is fun at first, but quickly gets stale and tiresome. If you had told me when I was 18 that I would still be single in my 30s, I would have laughed at you and told you that you were crazy. If you had told me when I was 20 and already months into my first real job that I would be bouncing around professional ten years later, I would have looked at you like you were insane.
It's not entirely my fault. The economy took a serious nose dive towards the end of the 2000s (to put it mildly) and this region took a serious hit. 2011, the year I turned 30, I could barely hold a job for more than a month or so. Work was impossible to get-which was that catalyst for me to move to Texas. Even now, four years later, the stats don't truly show how bad the economy and job market still is. There's job growth, sure, but wages are so stagnant they might as well be gathering flies. And upward mobility within a company is a sad, morbid joke. A classic example of this is a friend of mine who has a Master's in International Management. She works for Walgreens. And recruiters aren't exactly knocking down her door trying to hire her. This is someone who should be making six figures and she's barely making ends meat.
As I mentioned in my previous post, my life is currently in Limbo. There's something in the works that will be changing my life drastically for the better. It's just the period in between that is chalk full of hurry-up-and-wait. I'm not exactly a patient person (to put it mildly), but this I'm still biding my time while the wheels keep turning in my favor. Fortune favors the bold; and so does diligent perseverance. The moral of the story is that things are getting better. I'm just residing between a turbulent past and a future that is about to rocket forward.
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