This post may contain 50% rant, so please understand it in that context.
I am the youngest employee at my work. Therefore, I lack a vital thing that everyone else has and I cannot attain. Experience. And even though I pride myself in having some brains to put two and two together, experience seems to trump everything. Even if I think of something, someone else can say, "Well, I've done it before this way..." and my idea is no longer valid because someone else's past experience consistently yields better results than under-developed ideas.
I've never planned a wedding before. Therefore, I lack the vital thing that everyone else has and I cannot attain. Experience. And even though I pride myself in having organizational skills, experience seems to trump everything. Even if I think of something, another woman can say, "Well, it's always done this way..." and my idea is no longer valid because someone else's past experiences yield more traditional results than my under-developed ideas.
Okay, the tone may be a bit much, but I guess I'm a little discouraged. What is the point of going to school if experience is really the only thing that makes or breaks it? It seems like my schooling only gave me tools to seem like I have something to offer to the company, when really companies want people who are experienced. My knowledge only makes me an efficient gopher.
On the other hand, my wedding is slightly different. While I have very much relied on the past experiences of others and others' recommendations, there are some things I just feel like I don't want to do. But others are telling me that that is not how it is done. Do I defer to their ideas because they know and how can I know? I haven't done this before.
I am a very stubborn person. Even now, I put on my little kid pouty face when someone tries to do something for me that I know I can do myself and say, "No. I do!" Yes, childish, but I think that if I think I can do it, let me try until I know I can't. I don't like to read directions. I fumble around first so I can figure it out. This often leads to mistakes and picking up after the mistakes but ultimately understanding. Companies don't like that. Weddings don't like that. There is no room for trial and error.
I'm also a little frustrated because why I understand the value of experience, there is no way for me to get it without waiting. And I hate waiting. (Sorry, more childlike impatience going on.) I have to sit and wait in my gopher hole before I can watch enough people exhibit the wealth of their knowledge and experience for me to have experienced enough to step into the light. Is that how it works?
At this point in my life, being the "youth" that I am, I am at the start of my adult life and wondering where the adult part kicks in. As far as I'm concerned, there should be a phase for "young adult" when you are an adult but not quite. I guess years take the fun away from everything anyway, so its a trade off. Fun or experience?
Okay, never mind. I take the whole thing back. I want the fun. ;)
Monday, March 14, 2011
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
Sickness & House Moms
I have been taken captive by the influenza virus. I am not a normal captive to this hideous tyrant who demands control of every part of your body that can ache, but this year I fell victim. Sick for four days, going on five. I slept for 15 hours the first day I was sick. Only today have I felt well enough to even pull my laptop downstairs and sit on the couch (lying down, because sitting up takes too much energy) and write this.
Figuring that this is the last time I will be deathly ill and still under the cares of my attentive mother, I relished in the ability to have water delivered to my bedside, meals made for me, and movies put into the DVD player for me (complete with the remote handed to me while I lounged with my 101 degree fever). I will be probably be very sad the first time I'm sick at home alone, my husband having gone to work for the day, and I'm having to drag myself to the kitchen to force myself to cook something to eat because otherwise I'll just lie in bed all day.
And I keep saying this, but it is true: I had forgotten how boring being sick was. Perhaps it was the nature of this flu, which the doctor says is one of the worse strains she's seen over the seasons. Between the muscle aches, the joint aches, the nasal congestion, drowning in my own phlegm (too much information?), the head aches, and the sweating fevers, I had little space between the fatigue and the lack of brain function to do much of anything except stare at the television. Reading has become something like writing to me: part work and part enjoyment. Therefore, reading would require too much energy while I was sick. So, there I was, watching movie after movie because I had nothing else to occupy my time until I got better.
Quite depressing. All this time...five days of it...wasted because I have no energy to do anything. I was and am quite frustrated that all this time has passed and I accomplished nothing except to stay in my pajamas for probably the longest continuous time in my life. I guess, that is a feat for some.
Meanwhile, I've been watching my mother do her thing around the house. Its interesting watching a house mom. Little decisions can consume their entire day. Suddenly feeling bothered by the dust on the floor can cause a flurry of cleaning, putting every thing else that was on the to-do list somewhere else. Desires like cooking that chicken or finding that dress are now job tasks, not wishes. They are things that have to get done, otherwise the paycheck doesn't come. Not really, but they have more magnitude. You wonder what they do from the hours of 8am to 3pm when their children are in school. Sure, my mom also has her business, but most of that I see her doing in the evening. So what DOES she do?
I guess when I become a house mom, I'll understand, since that is the plan. I want to stay at home with my children. I guess the job becomes a little more looney when the children start moving out and growing up. I guess what I was observing these past 5 days was an empty-nester syndrome attaching itself to a once-busy house mom who used to have at least one toddler toddling around the house. That would mean at least one eye was busy watching the kid. Now, there are no toddlers, only teenagers and young adults, leaving the eyes with nothing to watch in the corner of them and only worries.
Being sick and quite bored, perhaps I am babbling on about nothing that is true since I've never been there before or perhaps the medicines are getting to my head. Either way, its been interesting, and while I don't mind being able to sleep in, I will very much like to stop being held physically captive by all of this fatigue. I can't wait to get something done.
Figuring that this is the last time I will be deathly ill and still under the cares of my attentive mother, I relished in the ability to have water delivered to my bedside, meals made for me, and movies put into the DVD player for me (complete with the remote handed to me while I lounged with my 101 degree fever). I will be probably be very sad the first time I'm sick at home alone, my husband having gone to work for the day, and I'm having to drag myself to the kitchen to force myself to cook something to eat because otherwise I'll just lie in bed all day.
And I keep saying this, but it is true: I had forgotten how boring being sick was. Perhaps it was the nature of this flu, which the doctor says is one of the worse strains she's seen over the seasons. Between the muscle aches, the joint aches, the nasal congestion, drowning in my own phlegm (too much information?), the head aches, and the sweating fevers, I had little space between the fatigue and the lack of brain function to do much of anything except stare at the television. Reading has become something like writing to me: part work and part enjoyment. Therefore, reading would require too much energy while I was sick. So, there I was, watching movie after movie because I had nothing else to occupy my time until I got better.
Quite depressing. All this time...five days of it...wasted because I have no energy to do anything. I was and am quite frustrated that all this time has passed and I accomplished nothing except to stay in my pajamas for probably the longest continuous time in my life. I guess, that is a feat for some.
Meanwhile, I've been watching my mother do her thing around the house. Its interesting watching a house mom. Little decisions can consume their entire day. Suddenly feeling bothered by the dust on the floor can cause a flurry of cleaning, putting every thing else that was on the to-do list somewhere else. Desires like cooking that chicken or finding that dress are now job tasks, not wishes. They are things that have to get done, otherwise the paycheck doesn't come. Not really, but they have more magnitude. You wonder what they do from the hours of 8am to 3pm when their children are in school. Sure, my mom also has her business, but most of that I see her doing in the evening. So what DOES she do?
I guess when I become a house mom, I'll understand, since that is the plan. I want to stay at home with my children. I guess the job becomes a little more looney when the children start moving out and growing up. I guess what I was observing these past 5 days was an empty-nester syndrome attaching itself to a once-busy house mom who used to have at least one toddler toddling around the house. That would mean at least one eye was busy watching the kid. Now, there are no toddlers, only teenagers and young adults, leaving the eyes with nothing to watch in the corner of them and only worries.
Being sick and quite bored, perhaps I am babbling on about nothing that is true since I've never been there before or perhaps the medicines are getting to my head. Either way, its been interesting, and while I don't mind being able to sleep in, I will very much like to stop being held physically captive by all of this fatigue. I can't wait to get something done.
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