Ah, the adult world. I actually kind of like it.
Recently my nephew told me that he thinks I'm a really cool adult. And that strikes me as about the coolest compliment I could ever receive.
Also recently my brother has made fun of the choices I make as "not good" haha. I take no offense to this, but I'm pretty sure that these two ideas are not completely disconnected.
For those of you who don't know, I recently switched jobs many times. When I got home from China [take two!] I got my job back at the rec center, then got a second job working at a used book store. My boss there is beyond fantastic and has gone to great lengths to give me hours and work with my schedule. She's great. But it wasn't enough money, so I also accepted a third part time job working for another branch of the recreation department in Broomfield, and then I proceeded to try and balance 16 credits at school and 3 part time jobs. I spent every waking moment of my day at work or school or driving from to the other. I would get home at 10/11 at night and then get food together for the next day and sleep and hopefully shower somewhere in there so I could wake up and be out of the house by 4:45 the next morning.
It made school hard. I think I could have been more successful on that front, but about a month into the semester I started to burn out so I spent the next two/three weeks blowing off most of my classes and then spent the rest of the semester trying to catch up and found myself, fairly consistently, behind by two/three weeks. Shocker.
However, the semester still ended alright, with me not failing anything! I do have to talk to my adviser and possibly retake o chem 1, but that's not the end of the world and I still consider the entire semester a success.
Another thing that was not helpful, though, was that right during the middle of one of my last tests in o chem, I decided that would be the perfect time to quit my job at the rec center and start working deicing planes instead. So I had a lot of training that I had to skip certain classes to go to, and it limited my ability to study for certain o chem tests... whoops. Oh well. It happens. At least it's just one test?
Nah, turns out I don't really like the idea of my income being dependent on the weather and how cold it is, so I ended up leaving the job and getting a new one right in the middle of finals week. Whoops again... I sense a trend. Anyway, I started working as an airplane detailer, cleaning the outside of Frontier's planes with an outside contracted company, and that was kinda fun!
Whoops, did I just past-tense that? It was kinda fun? Yeah. Yeah I did say that.
See, despite being fun, the company I worked for was also incredibly manipulative. Despite liking the work well enough and enjoying my coworkers' company, I had to get out. The scheduling and the constant talking-behind-your-back and the endless guilt trips were just not working out for me. Not to mention that during all of this, I'm still at the bookstore and my hours were being cut there (which I couldn't afford) and so I'm trying everything I can think of to schedule hours there so it doesn't conflict with the airplane job, which is incredibly difficult, given that's an ever-changing schedule... And basically I just ended up working during the night and the day, and sleeping for maybe a half hour at a time between the two. I possibly could have gotten more sleep, but I wanted to make sure I was awake for the puppy and taking him out and actually being a decent pet-owner.
I'm sorry, did I say puppy? You mean in all of this mess, I decided it would be a good idea to adopt a baby dog?
Yeah. Yeah, that's about the size of it. So I adopted this dog. He's the best thing that's ever happened to me. His name is Caffrey, and he is the most obedient and loving dog I've ever met. He gets the hiccups a lot. We're working on training still. He's a little skittish sometimes. But he's the best decision I think I've ever made.
So I got a new job. I now work at a halfway house (name will not be disclosed) and it's actually really fun. I work in security, so I check residents in and out all day, do head counts, monitor their med intake, administer breathalyzers, do room and person searches, picking up clients from jails, etc etc. It's a good time! I'm enjoying it a lot so far. It's only been two days, but I have a good feeling about it.
But I'm also still at the bookstore, working there on my days off from the halfway house. And honestly, I just feel incredibly lucky that I'm not working both jobs on the same day anymore.
I recently moved into an apartment by myself-- well, me and the dog-- and I can see how that might have been a less-than-wise decision. That's a lot of rent I have to make by myself now. But. I have a place I can call home, too. I'm not in someone's way or causing anyone an inconvenience by living here. And I feel like that's not something I've been able to say for at least 2 and half years, so I'm grateful to be here.
What other poor decisions have I made recently...
Oh yes. I had almost decided to not go back to school. I couldn't afford it this semester so I'm off right now, and I was thinking really hard about not going back at all. Don't worry-- I've recently found the drive to finish off school. I'm almost done. And though I have such little interest in continuing taking classes at this point, I am interested in getting my degree, so I'll stick it out for a little while longer. I only have 5 more classes to take, and I haven't decided if I'll do one over the summer and then two in fall and two in the spring OR one per semester until the end of 2017, but one of those two options. And then I won't be staying at my job because it's all I could get, but I'll be able to stay at my current job as long as I find it fun, then get something completely in my field.
[[This doesn't fall into decision making very much, but I've also got some cool new people in my life! All the friends I've had for the past 10 years seem to be living in our hometown area still, and I seem to have moved a bit farther south. Not terribly far, but far enough that I'm not really considered in their plans most of the time. I still get invited up for the bigger events, but the little things like going to the movies is not something they ask me if I want to do anymore. And that kinda stings. I understand it, and I don't fault them, and we're obviously still friends, but it's not the same as it was. So I also find myself to be incredibly lucky to have new friends who live near me that want to go climbing and hang out, or friends (who I met at the plane job) that might live a little farther but are completely willing to make the drive and hang out. It's been really nice to have some people who are proving to be constant in my life.]]
And poor choices though these may be, I love them. I haven't always made decisions that appeared to others to be bad. I've done the "responsible thing" for most of my life. Someone told me I should go to school, so I did. Someone told me I should get a degree in something responsible/realistic, so I went for that. Someone told me to be smarter and make better decisions and to not worry about living on my own, but to just get through school, so I tried. Just live with family and do whatever you have to to make it through school. And I gave it a shot. But it just dragged me into this cage of someone else's life and someone else's dream that I shouldn't have been living. Everything that I've done recently has been a decision I made for myself. They might not be the most responsible choices, but they haven't been the more irresponsible either. But the thing I cannot stress enough is that they were my decisions.
I've really felt like my life was a living hell for a long time. I was in a place that I thought I'd never get out of. I thought I was the problem, I was the reason I was so miserable. Something I was doing was wrong, but I couldn't figure out what I needed to change to make things better. Turns out I was just too focused on what other people defined success as and what other people thought would be the right thing to do in my life. I trapped myself in that cage. Until I started making decisions recently that felt right to me, no thought of what anyone else thinks about it.
And now I just feel free.
Today I got to pick up some people from a jail to come to the halfway house and they were so excited to get out of there. They wouldn't have to hear the heavy doors slamming shut anymore, they would actually be able to put their own wallet in their back pocket again... When we walked outside and one of them got some fresh air, he said, "You smell that? It's freedom! It smells so good!"
And he's right. It smelled great.
