My friend from L.A. got stranded in Memphis the other night due to inclement weather, so I picked him up at his hotel and we went out to eat at a bbq place in the hood that has bars on the door and windows. It was nice to have a friend from another part of my life stop by and see where I am now, since I always feel like I'm floating around in the twilight zone and feeling like Marty McFly from "Back to the Future" when he starts to see his body erase from his family picture. I don't know where I fit or belong or where I'm supposed to be. The worst part is that I don't completely know where I WANT to be. I think if I knew what I actually wanted, I wouldn't feel quite so lost. I wouldn't feel like my fate is left up to a bunch of people who may or may not have my best interest in mind. And of course, people don't determine my fate at all; God does and I do, but when you're at the mercy of most other people, it's hard to remember that. I feel like I have two or three paths that I want to go down that ultimately could bring me a lot of joy and fulfillment for the course of my life, but picking one means giving up the others, and so I just wait, hoping that one of the paths will choose me so I don't choose the wrong one and screw up my entire life. This is not an original thought. A lot of people have thought this throughout the course of history. But when it's my life; when I'm the one experiencing it instead of just reading about it, it means something totally different.
Listening to my friend at dinner made me sort of feel like the past few years of my life never existed. We talked a lot about where I am now and where I'm going- what makes me happy or how I'm trying to find that out. Then he said, "That's the beauty of L.A. It's the Land of Dreamers. You can change your name. You can be whoever you want and do whatever you want. And nobody cares." And part of that is the paramount appeal of the city and culture; you CAN do whatever you want, and NOBODY cares. People don't hang onto the past. But they don't necessarily move to the future. There are two groups of people in L.A., though. Those who are only concerned with this very second, and those who are so ambitious that they will go to any measure to move forward. People don't ask you where you went to high school or who you used to date because they don't care. I love that part. For those who care about this very second, about the here and now, it was nice to experience that for a little while because that is so completely opposite of who I am. It was nice to be exposed to a new way of life.
Part of what makes me hate this town is part of what always brings me back. People here know me. People here know where I grew up and who I dated and who my friends were and where my house is and who my family is. They know me. That can be an anchor and a comfort at the same time.
I don't know what has happened to me, or what is happening to me, or what I'm doing. I'm 26 years old, I live with my parents, I am a bookkeeper and am making less money now than I did when I first graduated from college. I feel like my education hasn't really paid off and I get discouraged most mornings when I crank up my car in the freezing temperatures and drive 18 miles to work, way down the interstate past the ghetto and under overpasses, past muddy lakes and dead trees and slick surfaces to a job that took me 4.5 months to find. I'm not dogging my job. I actually like my job and tell God, every morning, "THANK YOU for this job." My coworkers are incredibly supportive and encouraging and I never think about work when I'm not working. I have never had a job like this. All of my jobs have been in the helping professions (special ed and counseling), so when I leave work, I never actually LEAVE- my mind is always thinking about treatment plans and support systems and helping people get their lives together. I keep thinking that maybe this time in my life, where I'm older than everyone in my office and am at the very bottom of the proverbial totem pole, is maybe a time for me to rest, and sleep all night, and enjoy the meaning of a functional environment, and finding what balance is. Maybe this time of hours upon hours of debits and credits and commutes and what could appear to be stagnation, is, indeed, a time to relax and be quiet and still until the next thing in my life, whatever it is, requires my undivided devotion.
My last job was spent with my boss always talking about how stupid everyone else was, and she would constantly yell the F word in all of our faces if we put the wrong postage on an envelope or spelled something wrong in an email. I've been working here since December 16, and two of my coworkers got me Christmas presents. These people don't even know me, and these are the kinds of people that they are. They are good, solid people who think about others, and that is invaluable.
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