Not much going on here, just getting ready for bed and thought I would say hello! Tomorrow's going to be a busy day and I'm trying to mentally prepare for it. Hopefully I'll get enough sleep to maintain a positive attitude!
Monday, April 2, 2012
Saturday, March 24, 2012
On being an adult, and changes
I remember being a kid and thinking adulthood would be awesome. And, frankly, there are times between the paying of the bills and the going to the work that it IS awesome. Ice cream for breakfast? Boom. Stay up 'til midnight playing video games? DONE. But I find the biggest challenge of being an adult has nothing to do with wondering where the next meal is coming from (okay, well, maybe a little) but getting used to the changes - and sometimes lack thereof - that happen once you've settled into adulthood.
Life becomes pretty much the same. You get up, go to work, come home, eat dinner, go to bed. In between there might (if you're lucky) be time for the things you like doing - for me, it's reading, knitting, crafting, watching TV, and playing video games. But I find that sometimes I get home so tired I just want to sit on the couch and stare at my computer 'til it's bedtime (which, admittedly and sadly, is becoming earlier than I'd like ti to be). There's no summer vacation, there's no in-service or snow days. Occasionally you can get away with a day where you don't feel like doing anything and so you do just that, but you can't make that a habit or else you'll find yourself on the dole in your PJ's looking for a job, any job, that doesn't suck and pays more than what you're making on unemployment.
This part can be difficult for me because I suffer from depression. When I get into a rut, I really get stuck there, and it's touch to extricate myself from it. I'm going through a rut right now. I'm frustrated with my job and feeling burned out on it. I can think of things that I'd rather be doing that would help cheer me up - going to Disneyland and staying at home are the big ones right now - but they aren't really realistic in terms of time or money (or keeping my job). It's this terrible catch-22: not wanting to be at my job makes me less effective at my job, and being less effective makes me look like a prime candidate for dismissal, especially since I work for the State and they're looking for ways, any way, to trim budget here and there. If I get fired, then my depression gets worse and I'm not making money... Maybe not a catch-22 so much as a downward spiral of suck.
The big thing lately is that, having recognized that I don't want to do what I do for the rest of my life, I would like to go back to school. I'm very fortunate that my father has offered to help subsidize this should I choose to do so. I got extremely excited because there were reports that the college I work for was getting a program in a field I have wanted to do my whole life: veterinary nursing. I was thrilled. But, because of budgetary restrictions, the program isn't going forward right now since they can't afford to create new classes or hire new faculty. The extra-tough part? The next closest program is 3 hours away either North or South. I've looked into it, found a really good program, even gotten myself admitted to the school and the program.
Here's where it circles back to being an adult and responsibilities I never considered when I was young. I'm not single. If I were, my bags would be packed and I'd be headed South for school. But I've been in a relationship now for nearly four years. There's talk of marriage (eventually. Which is an entirely different blog post). And he doesn't want to go.
He (we'll call him Partner) brings up valid points. Neither of us has anything in savings. We don't have jobs there, especially Partner, who would carry the burden of working full-time (I would work part-time. I HAVE thought this out a bit). I argue it's easier to get a job from 15 miles away than 180, but either way the job market is tight and there are no guarantees. How would we be able to afford to live somewhere? And somewhere that would take The Dog? I know there's programs out of state where we could live much more cheaply, but we've already discussed that and it's off the table... in a manner of speaking. In that Partner doesn't want to leave this area.
So how do I reconcile what I so desperately want, something that would make me happy, against a relationship that I desperately want, another thing that makes me happy?
They never talked about this when I was a kid.
Life becomes pretty much the same. You get up, go to work, come home, eat dinner, go to bed. In between there might (if you're lucky) be time for the things you like doing - for me, it's reading, knitting, crafting, watching TV, and playing video games. But I find that sometimes I get home so tired I just want to sit on the couch and stare at my computer 'til it's bedtime (which, admittedly and sadly, is becoming earlier than I'd like ti to be). There's no summer vacation, there's no in-service or snow days. Occasionally you can get away with a day where you don't feel like doing anything and so you do just that, but you can't make that a habit or else you'll find yourself on the dole in your PJ's looking for a job, any job, that doesn't suck and pays more than what you're making on unemployment.
This part can be difficult for me because I suffer from depression. When I get into a rut, I really get stuck there, and it's touch to extricate myself from it. I'm going through a rut right now. I'm frustrated with my job and feeling burned out on it. I can think of things that I'd rather be doing that would help cheer me up - going to Disneyland and staying at home are the big ones right now - but they aren't really realistic in terms of time or money (or keeping my job). It's this terrible catch-22: not wanting to be at my job makes me less effective at my job, and being less effective makes me look like a prime candidate for dismissal, especially since I work for the State and they're looking for ways, any way, to trim budget here and there. If I get fired, then my depression gets worse and I'm not making money... Maybe not a catch-22 so much as a downward spiral of suck.
The big thing lately is that, having recognized that I don't want to do what I do for the rest of my life, I would like to go back to school. I'm very fortunate that my father has offered to help subsidize this should I choose to do so. I got extremely excited because there were reports that the college I work for was getting a program in a field I have wanted to do my whole life: veterinary nursing. I was thrilled. But, because of budgetary restrictions, the program isn't going forward right now since they can't afford to create new classes or hire new faculty. The extra-tough part? The next closest program is 3 hours away either North or South. I've looked into it, found a really good program, even gotten myself admitted to the school and the program.
Here's where it circles back to being an adult and responsibilities I never considered when I was young. I'm not single. If I were, my bags would be packed and I'd be headed South for school. But I've been in a relationship now for nearly four years. There's talk of marriage (eventually. Which is an entirely different blog post). And he doesn't want to go.
He (we'll call him Partner) brings up valid points. Neither of us has anything in savings. We don't have jobs there, especially Partner, who would carry the burden of working full-time (I would work part-time. I HAVE thought this out a bit). I argue it's easier to get a job from 15 miles away than 180, but either way the job market is tight and there are no guarantees. How would we be able to afford to live somewhere? And somewhere that would take The Dog? I know there's programs out of state where we could live much more cheaply, but we've already discussed that and it's off the table... in a manner of speaking. In that Partner doesn't want to leave this area.
So how do I reconcile what I so desperately want, something that would make me happy, against a relationship that I desperately want, another thing that makes me happy?
They never talked about this when I was a kid.
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