I’ve spent years like all of you, doing what I thought I was supposed to do. I got married young (yes, that’s working out), had a successful albeit short-lived career, and then I had a baby and it kind of all started to fall apart.
So, fuck it. I’m calling it. The rules are changing now.
Getting Oldish
I’ve just stumbled through another birthday. They won’t quit coming. Up until yesterday I was pretty sure that the best thing about my birthday this year had been that text I got from my best friend letting me know I was not, in fact, as old as I thought I was. She did me a solid; gently reminded me of how to do simple math,
and here I am again… 32.
The truth is, though, that whether that number seems big or small, you’ve got to know that 32 is too many years to have lived and still not know who you are.
40 Long Hours a Week Under Gag Order
I’m not going to spend another second living in a stranger’s body, censoring who I am at my foundation.
I will never again work in a capacity which requires me to take 20 minutes to tell Bob that we have some ‘concerns’, that we see ‘room for improvement’, when all Bob wants to know is who is gunning for him and how long he has to get out before risking (simultaneous) financial implosion and a nail in the coffin of his fragile marriage. Bob knows he’s being managed out. He doesn’t need my aloof ass, at half his age, sitting across from him to manage his performance. All he needs from me is “So Bob, you’re fucked. There’s no way out now after that shit you pulled in the meeting”. A Jack Kevorkian of sorts, putting an end to what could be an extended circus performance. Bob would have thanked me.
What in the sweetest fuck was I thinking when I went into HR? I’ve spent my entire life walking around hoping everyone liked me! Why, when my professor told us on the last day of our first class, that cafeteria conversations would likely come to a screeching halt when we walked in the room, did I think “Well fack me! Sign me up for 30 years of this! And the inability to use the work ‘fuck’ for 50 hours a week?! Oh HELLS YA! I can totally handle that!” Like, really…
Perspective – Get Some
When you step away from a job you don’t like, you feel like the victim of some strange pyramid scheme.. And the inventory of 550 bottles of Amway’s ‘best-selling’ beard shampoo hangs around for years just to haunt you.
Ridiculous missteps aside, my job now is to get back to myself. Along the way, I want to demonstrate to my very young children that there is a difference between being authentic because it’s who you are, and being an argumentative angsty dick. (And it ain’t about attention either, honey, so don’t get any ideas about turning 15 and deciding you can out-attitude your mother because your mother is the sarcasta-bitch O.G. and I will end you). This is about allowing yourself to be who you are so that you can stand to live with yourself for the next 50, or 20, or 10 years. Hell, if you get fake enough just the idea of one more week could put you within arms reach of that nervous breakdown thing! I think that’s when nice men take you on a vacation to the quiet of a hospital room. Very exclusive.
I’m not doing it anymore. Put on your forward thinking brains, let go of the judgment, and let’s get on with constructing a life we can live with.