Fitting that the first show is all about new beginnings, with this being the beginning of trying to keep up with This American Life and all, let's see what damage we can do to this topic. There's a lot within this one to think about, but we'll go with this. I'm guessing personal essay is going to show up the most while doing these, oh well, such is the nature of the beast.
Newest Beginning
I don't have any beginnings any more. I wish I did, but instead of being a master of the new and perfecting the start of relationships, I seem to have gotten dealt the hand that forces me to deal with long term relationships within my life that never seem to change and never have the possibility to.
Graduation is supposed to be a great new beginning. We hear it when we graduate from high school from the teachers, we hear it from our validictorian when we grab our college degree, and you hear it just about every time you put on the robes and start hearing names read off that you have never met before. Graduation is supposed to be a time where you put your education behind you, where you take everything that you learn, and then jump into the new beginning of your life, your career. It's the biggest step that you can take as an adult, one from being a student, to being a member of society doing what you just spent thousands of dollars learning how to do . . . or at least that's the way it's supposed to be.
For me, my beginnings lead to no changes, and the weirdest part about it is that it's not for lack of trying. It's not like I'm sitting at home playing video games for hours on end . . . okay, maybe I am, but the point is that when I'm not trying to save the world, I'm trying to change my life. I'm trying to do something with my life, but in the weird situation that I'm stuck in, I can't. You see, I'm married with a kid, and that's made everything at least twenty bazillion times trickier. That thing called a family, as great as they are, has managed to throw a wrench in the system of trying to get a start in my life.
I'd like to think that it's just my family that's holding me back, making it so I'm not as mobile, limiting the ability for me to get a job that will pay me, but then I run into the other problem with all of this, I've applied for jobs within the area. I've submitted my resume to businesses, and family aside, I'm not getting the position.
In this time that I'm supposed to be having a new beginning, this time in which I'm supposed to be doing something, I'm stuck. And I'm not even stuck in a place that I like. I'm stuck in a call center doing a job I hate, having to play back up in my family, and watch as everyone else, namely my wife, gets what they want.
That's the part that hurts the most.
I do everything I can to make my wife happy, but there are times that I really don't like seeing her happy because it reminds me of just how bad I have it. But the only thing that makes it worse is when she's angry. When she's angry she gets upset about the stupidest things. She gets upset because she has a job that she wants and it treats her how you would expect a job in that field would. She gets upset because she spends so much time doing what she wants to do as a career. She gets upset that she has to do what she went to school for. Sure, sometimes the girls she teaches are annoying, and there's not much you can do about that, but the fact that she gets to do what she wants, do what she has spent time and money to build up to outweighs just about any bad thing that she could possibly come up with, but she doesn't see it.
It's painful to watch people not see what they have.
I'm fighting to even get an interview in my field of study.
I'm putting every ounce of effort I can in trying to get something that's even sort of related to my passion.
I'm sitting and having to work in a job saved for high school drop outs and meth heads waiting for the moment when I can sit down and work on something that I have actual skills in.
I dream about my new beginning.
I hope for my new beginning.
I look at every single job posting like it's the last piece of cake that someone saved just for me, but fight for it like there are 30 other people all trying for that single slice.
It is close to impossible to have to sit through people complaining about their jobs, when their jobs are something that they went to school for and have, or at least had, a passion for. It is frustrating to hear people complain about the money that they are making to do something they love. Do you want to know how much money I've made in my entire life using any knowledge gained while at college? It's $0. Every dollar that I've made in my entire life has been gained while using basic knowledge or information that I picked up in high school. I could have gone through the past ten years doing NOTHING and wouldn't be paid an cent more than what I've currently made. This is going from personal essay to rant, oh well, we'll get better as we go on, I'm just peeved about this right now so this is what it's mutating into.
In this stuck position that I'm in I'm at a loss to know what to do. There are only a few options. The first is to think that it'll get better and to think that it's just a phase that I'm in, and the numbers will swing my way if I just keep trying. The next is to think that I'm screwed and just give up and submit that no matter how hard I try I'm doomed to be the over educated guy asking you if you would like fries with your combo meal. The final option is to make my family upset. To hurt the ones that I love the most in this world, and start looking for jobs anywhere else but in the nearest 40 miles around me.
The obvious answer is that my family will love me and that they will support me, but there's not a chance in the world that my wife is going to support me if I drag her away from her mother, and she is not close at hand when her mom dies. She can forgive me for a lot, but being the reason that she's not close by if/when her mom dies is not on that list and I don't want to deal with that.
I wish I could see the world in a new light, to have a fresh take on everything and have that pure start, but for now my newest beginning happened ten years ago when I graduated from high school and moved out. Since then I've pretty much been singing the same song and trying to fool myself that I was doing something new.
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