7/30 Things: What is Your Dream Job and Why?

This is another one of those questions that is going to be really difficult for me to answer because I still, while standing on the wrong side of 30, have no idea what I want to be when I grow up. When I was a little girl my stock answer was, “a veterinarian!” ; but as an adult I can say that no, this is not for me. I love animals. I relate better to animals than I do people for the most part.  There is absolutely no way that I can see myself euthanizing animals on a daily basis – sick and elderly or not. My next thought was, “Maybe I should work in a zoo?”; but as an adult I have some real reservations about the ethics of zoos in general. So again, this is probably not something for me.

When I was a teenager I was certain that I was going to be a mortician. I had plans to go to Delgado University in New Orleans. I can remember riding up to the cemetery close to my house with a couple of my friends wearing my cutest skirt and my most professional shoes. I asked the mortician there for an internship and he suggested that I might come help him “hose down” tables and clean up biohazards. He was fucking weird. He was exactly like someone who spent too much time with dead people and inhaling formaldehyde should be. Also, he was wearing a plastic apron and was missing fingers. I left – quickly. No – this was not the job for me. I thought it sounded “cool” and I thought that it sounded like the kind of profession someone who was going to marry Peter Steele one day would be in. It turns out that I am neither cool nor am I the bride of the (late and wonderful) Mr. Steele, and thus I am also not a mortician.

My degree is Environmental Science – but what does that usually equate to in the real world? Supervisors at water treatment plants; low pay grade EPA workers; industrial environmental consultants…all things that sound INCREDIBLY boring and depressing. I want the degree to mean, “protects the environment and cares for animals”, but it is more like, “park ranger or eventual corporate sell-out.”

I have seen internships that I would love to do. There was one that was sitting in the jungle in South America (I forget exactly where, but I want to say Peru), and documenting the activities of amazon parrots. There was another one that was camping out in the wild in Africa (again, I cannot quite remember where) and protecting elephants from poachers. I would love to get a spot on that boat that sabotages the Japanese whalers. Alas, none of these things equate to a career that can sustain my family.

I guess my dream job is to be suddenly wealthy and to be able to devote all of my time to the causes that are important to me. I want to be able to devote time and my skills to things that matter to me and, if all else fails, throw an obscene amount of cash at the problem. I want my life to have meaning. I guess, at this point in my life, I am starting to think that it is too late to make a difference in anything. I wish I could start over. But, as they say, “If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.”  My point is, if you are young and (god help you) reading this, get off of your ass and start working on your dreams now because time is more finite than you can comprehend. Time, death, and the general harshness of life are in pursuit of you, and they will never give up. Do everything you can now to be the person you want to be when you grow up because you are probably going to have to live with that person for a very long time. 

Random musing #1

I often write what I am calling "musings" for lack of a better term. I sit and write my thoughts in a somewhat flowery way without it being what I would call poetry. I have these little musings scribbled everywhere. For the sake of self-documentation, I am going to post them here. Be warned, they are typically even more maudlin than my actual "poetry."

Every morning I pass my reflection in the bathroom mirror and I purposely avert my gaze. I know what I look like. I know the monster that I'll see staring back at me. I know all I'll see reflected in that small, dirty piece of glass. Grey eyes like stormclouds, red veins like lightning in the whites of my eyes that hint towards not enough sleep and too many nightmares. Dark circles on puffy cheeks. A red eyelid caused by an infection that my body is too weak to fight off, even with medication.  Cracked lips and frown lines; big pores and that scar near my hairline. Chipped teeth and eyebrows that are long overdue.  There was once beauty here. There was once laughter and joy. For the briefest of time there was innocence.  There was once a glossy smirk and a playful wink here. There was once life here. 

Oye, if depression had a monologue, this would certainly be in it. 

General update!

Things have been pretty crazy over the past several weeks for me. I have wanted to write for quite some time but every time I sit down to do it I get distracted by the mountain of other things I need to do at that moment, which may or may not include Skyrim.

I have begun to go with my husband to his friend’s house once a week for what can only be described as ultimate nerdery. Table-top gaming FTW! I love my husband and I actually really like his friends, so I think that this is a good thing for me. I am thrilled that his best friend has been so accepting of me. I always assumed that he would meet me and be like “Dude; RUN!”, but so far he has not, so far as I can tell. I avoided meeting my husband’s friends for about nine years; mostly because I was terrified that they would not like me and I was ashamed of myself for the way that I look. Now that I have met them I don’t honestly think they care what I look like. I think that they are probably just glad that my husband is happy. I would actually like to get to know them all better, but I don’t want to seem too eager.

We were pre-myspace, but this was
essentially us. 

Speaking of friendships; I have been communicating sporadically with my childhood best friend. It is, in a way bittersweet. I love talking to her. When she and I were younger we were absolutely inseparable. She was my everything. When we were about 16 she and I had a severe falling out and I, stubbornly and stupidly, pushed her out of my life and locked the door. When I talk to her it is wonderful because I still love her so much and I have found that I love who she is, not just who she was when we were young. It also hurts because I think of all of the years that we were apart. I think about how nobody will ever understand me the way that she and I understand one another. I think about all of the wasted years that I was alone and longing for someone to really, really listen to me. I missed out on 15 years of that because of my pride. Now we are together again, but we are not. I can feel the distance between us, the literal and figurative distance, and I fucking hate it. I wish that I could fix it but all I can do is give it what I didn’t give it before – time and love.

Let’s see; what else… I am on month two of my six month pre-op diet before weight-loss surgery. I am not sure if I have written about it before on here, but yeah. Gastric sleeve surgery. It is a pretty big decision and not one that I came to lightly. My health, my self-confidence, and my quality of life are all going to improve tremendously from this. Can I die from it? Yeah. But hell, I could die taking a shower. I want to be able to really live. I want to be one of those people who hikes to Machu Picchu
or swims with dolphins. I want to run. I want to feel like no one is snickering at me because I’m fat when I go to the grocery store. I want to look in the mirror and not hate what I see to the point of wishing for death. Losing weight won’t cure all of that, but I feel assured that it will assist me on that road.

In other news, my dog Addy (aka Khalessi ) resembles, in almost every way, a pot-bellied pig. She sounds like one, as well.
I will be updating with a real posting soon. Thanks for reading!