Working Girl

I really need someone else to come up with titles for these posts. And maybe just manage it in general and provide me with deadlines and accountability. It's unpaid, but you'll get great experience.

As I mentioned in the last post, I quit my job and moved.

I was getting bored at the old job and looking for something new. It's a good company and I liked my coworkers, but it was just time to make a move and do something different. Also I didn't really want to live there anymore. That little town was far from anywhere I wanted to be, and I felt so trapped. Nothing ever happened, I was in the same house my ex husband and I had, and it was just a bad day-in, day-out rut.

Here's a fun fact. Twice, I had a part of an interview focus on my personality and then afterword I didn't hear anything back. One job I applied for did a pretty intense personality test on me. I don't mean the Jung's classification thing, or one of those tests where they ask if you've ever had violent tendencies. No, I mean a test that really made you question who you really are deep down when no one is looking. I completed it, and the potential employer went radio silent for over a week. I was really worried what they learned about me, and if they had alerted the authorities.

I'm not really known for being the brave one. I don't do random shit like this. I seek stability, and have stayed in less than ideal situations just because they're familiar. Because they're safe and predictable. I don't quit the only job I've had since college and move away from the place I've lived for twenty years.

And yet, I did. I have.

There's really no point in complaining about your situation if you aren't going to change it. It may be scary or difficult, but the feeling of knowing you at least took action is worth pushing through that fear. At the end of our lives, the regrets of what we never did will weigh the heaviest. And at the end of that life, that's it. The last chapter. The final note hanging in the air. There is no option to start over. We aren't Mario. As much as I would like some magical food to make me taller, that's not the world we live in.

So, do whatever you're going to do. Find what makes you unhappy and push it out of your life. Change that thing that's bothering you. Tell that person why they're an asshole. Get out and exercise. Ask for that promotion. Even if you don't like it, even if you make the wrong choice. Just prove to yourself that you can do it, and that your life will go on.

Big Changes

Hello, friends. I did that thing where I forgot to actually write in my blog for... several months. To be honest I kept wondering what to write about as eventually the divorce seemed less important, and dating seemed really unpleasant.

Btw, it is. Sometimes my response to the thought of dying alone is "God willing."

So then I quit my job and moved. Well, I started moving. This weekend I packed up my clothes and coffee maker, and started a new job today. I've done little else because I'm a procrastinator and justify my poorly thought out actions by saying I'm just taking it bit by bit. Which isn't totally untrue, as I have made some serious progress with painting and cleaning some old crap out that I have no use for and don't need to haul to a new city.

Such as my wedding album. And the entire box I had kept of mementos from things my ex and I had done together throughout the course of our relationship. There were some bows from flowers he had bought, and a little plastic heart that decorated some kind of cake he had gotten me. There were programs and pamphlets from trips we had taken and things we had visited. There were movie tickets from dates. The prayer book from our wedding ceremony. The guest book from our wedding, which felt as lackluster as the relationship itself. There were plane tickets. Stuff from Ireland, the first international trip I had taken and the last trip we had together.

I recalled all these events. The hotel we got downtown after a beer garden. Dinners we had after special occasions. "Just because" gifts and notes. How much fun Ireland was, even though at one point I wanted to leave him in a grocery store because he was dragging his heels when he walked. I recalled asking him to pick up his feet because the sound drove me nuts, and he made a point to just get louder.

When I had started this blog, I had some plan to ceremoniously burn it all as some kind of closure. Maybe have friends over when it happened. Get a bottle of champagne. I don't really know, but I wanted to do something as some kind of sign that it was over.

Instead, I threw it in the garbage can between loads of laundry and before I went to a workout. Looked through it, looked at the pictures in the album, and then tossed it all.

If that wasn't the ultimate in "look how far I've come" I'm not sure what is.

Well now that shit's actually happening in my life, I can get back to this.