To Admire

I have no schemas in my mind for what working a “real” job actually entails at all. My dad is an engineer for a less-than-interesting corporation, and he loathes it. I have no concept of how his work day is spent. My mother taught Greek and typing (ha!) briefly at a private high school before I was born, as well as a stint at Frito-Lay in accounting, but for most of my life, she has been a stay-at-home mom, returning to work when I was in middle school at a department store as a salesperson (while my dad was unemployed for two years.) Now, she is a cafeteria lady at a public middle school and works as a server for a catering company  from Eastern Kentucky University. My mother is 53. She has a B.S. in accounting and an M.A. in Biblical Studies (her primary focus were ancient languages—Greek the most, Hebrew, Latin.)

a. I don’t want this to happen to me. At 21, I am already strongly aware that I do not want a job that is constantly physically demanding (hello, waitressing.) I want to really make use of my degrees.

b. My mom was a hella good stay-at-home mom. And her mom didn’t work when she raised her children as well.

c. I have no mentor to help me navigate to a particular chosen career, or any examples in my immediate family of this.

d. Some days, I kind of just… want to be a housewife. It’s what I know. I am utterly clueless about what any sort of other job takes, besides taking care of a house and children and working in the food industry. The latter is certainly not where I want to be bound the rest of my life. The former is more pleasant, more secure, and gives me a jumping-off point for pursuing hobbies and volunteerism and… it’s not at all out of my comfort zone.

oof oof oof.

growing up? it’s hard to do.

Send probably a dozen late-night anxious texts to boyfriend about marriage and independence and paranoia and trust.

Receive late night-email that I’ve sold 2 of my textbooks already from Amazon.

Carefully scoop with the edge of a knife blade roughly 30 mg Vyvanse into my glass of water this morning. Swirl with straw, gulp down, feel guilty. (P.S. Do not fret, I am prescribed 30 mg Vyvanse, but I am out, and running up to get new Rx tomorrow in Louisville, so I hack up my few remaining 40 mg capsules.)

Read reassuring texts back from boyfriend.

Call Baptist East Behavioral Health to get an appointment with my counselor. Good!

Wander into dining/computer room to notice a sticky note on the monitor. It is from my dad, suggesting I take pictures of my textbooks and he will help me post them under his ebay name, since he is a top seller with an excellent rating. (He underlined excellent.)

I email to let him know this is not necessary, but thank you, and I’ve already sold two books and have their receipts and little thank you notes tucked in.

Then I send a P.S. with the profit I made. Then I attach a P.P.S. elaborating why I wish he would trust my decisions, because I come to them after GREAT, ridiculous, thorough analysis, and I grow anxious and paranoid and increasingly perfectionistic the more he does not trust my judgement. When I ever fail, even slightly, I feel so much guilt. So please, lay off and just love. You know, a way too personal email. BCC’d to my mother. Okay. Let’s see how this goes.