Unsure

For years I suffered from something that vaguely (or obviously, depends on your POV) resembled self-doubt. I look back on pictures of myself and hardly remember that naive girl who challenged herself little but dreamed big.

Today I spoke with my boyfriend and his cheerful demeanor crippled all of the walls I built to protect me from the growing problems I faced. My insecurities regarding my ability to do the easiest of job-related tasks broke me down into tears; what sort of person doesn't get hired after over a year of looking? I felt a failure. A loser.

And the bf pointed out something to me that I always disregard: that I'm not alone. It didn't matter. I've always been a selfish mourner, refusing to believe that anyone else has the same horrible denial and self-effacing feelings as myself. Punishment is doled out on the daily, all mental abuse.

What sort of pattern have I built up in my mind that allows me to do such things to myself? Where is there a place to help cure the agony of self-loathing?

I've crossed out shrinks. I've crossed out pills (forever). My final cure?

Love.

There is a power inside Love that can dissipate even the illest regrets. I can rage, cry, scream, hit my head against walls until whatever pain I felt pales in comparison, but all of that can be cured with a simple "I Love You". And I hear it enough to realize it isn't an illusion. The sentiment should not be caged, but released until each and every human realizes it exists in the here and now.

I re-read posts like this and wonder if I'm being dramatic. If this is a superficial desire to be a trophy human, awing all who glance my way with whatever success I've amassed. Instead, I'm merely haunted by the fact that I am what I am and there's no changing it.

And I can change it. With a simple "I Love You".

Reconnection

I have suddenly had a brilliant idea.

In the course of ripping apart my room in search of old high school yearbooks, I discovered a photo album given to me by a friend. Inside were pictures from my teen years, capturing the essence of my freshman through senior years.

As I sat examining the photos, gasping at the memories, my boyfriend sat on the edge of my bed in apparent boredom. The few photos that hadn't been ripped from the album laid intact within the wrapping, securing my moments as a teen in tip top shape and were of no interest to him.

While explaining the pictures, I had a thought. Each photograph held a moment in time with friends I was either still in contact with or could contact.

I decided I would go back through the album, pick a few poignant shots, and recreate them in the here and now. Old friends would become new, or just reacquainted, as I stole a moment in this time, just like I had back in high school.

When I relayed this to my boyfriend, he said "Well, do it." And my response:

"Someday."

"But why not now?"

I thought about that for awhile. Why must I always push back my dreams until they are nothing but a journal entry?

So I'm recruiting former chums and current conspirators to make an album that will help me reconnect to a time when I was innocent and truly happy.

Who's with me?

The Age Definer

I recently had a birthday, the 23rd celebration of my birth, and was surprised by how old I actually am.

To clarify, I mean this in a mildly sarcastic way. My mother has told me over and over when I complain to her of my lack of ambition that I have many, MANY more years to achieve all that I want from life. What she fails to realize is that at my age, 23 is just a sled ride into menopause, rather than an opportunity to succeed where others have failed.

Case in point, My List of Why I Am An Old Fart:

1.) I'm going to a No Doubt REUNION tour.
2.) I look at teenagers, like my brother, and ask them to please, pull up their GD pants.
3.) I really enjoy eating at 5pm.
4.) When someone asks me what I'd like to drink, I no longer ask for a Natty Lite.
5.) I go to bed at 10pm on a weekday.

The opposing, My Mother, insisting I'm a huge baby:

1.) Cupcakes are on my top ten list of favorite foods.
2.) I still don't have a job with benefits, including health/dental/401k/natural disasters.
3.) I talk to my cats like they're people (this is technically borderline crazy and up for debate)
4.) My shirts occasionally have super heroes on them.
5.) When I see a dog I still shout "OMG IS THAT A DOG!? SO CUTE!" at the top of my lungs and then insist on petting it.

I know at this point in my life I haven't reached the goals I wanted to, such as having a real job, moving out and living on my own, and having an independent existence.

Admittedly, I am of the larger percentile of well off humans despite my interesting choice of career, and really need to shut my gob and relax.

Do they make a pill for that?

Rejection Objection

I'm only 22, soon to be 23 and know that I'm in for a hell of a lot more sad moments in my life. Looking on the bright side, making silly faces and generally enjoying myself should take precedent over my daily moping.

Sure, that cool job I thought I wanted was given to an intern who won't make money for their time. Maybe the economy sucks so much that working at Starbucks (which is nothing to sneer at, they have health care)has become more and more appealing. Perhaps someday I'll look back on all my turmoil trying to find employment and laugh as tears roll down my face.

Smiling is infinitely harder when I seem to keep failing.

Both my boyfriend and my mother say I'm a Debbie Downer. I say "of course, have you seen my resume?" I have done TONS of childcare work, which means I should have Donald Trump's job; I'm taking on the child-size version of "The Apprentice". I have/had an internship which took up a great deal of my time, paid for my travel expenses not including my Metrocard and provided me with mounds of experience that mean bupkis to the CEO who knows he's gonna hire his kid rather than me. Childcare, while being incredibly difficult at points and involving lots of patience does nothing for me. Most of the high-ups see childcare as the be all end all of womanly duties that I should be happy to have. And I really want to relay a few choice words to those people...but I'm a lady and ladies keep it zipped.

Which leads me to believe that I'm doomed.

Then I have my coffee, sit and reflect and discover my potential buried deep inside all my insecurity and childhood memories.

If I was completely hopeless, I wouldn't have managed to nab that internship, my nannying position, or any of the numerous clusters of childcare jobs I've had since the age of 12. An intern/assistant is nothing compared to a 10 year old with ADD.

NOTHING.

So I say bring it. I'm completely prepared.

Wedding Savings

After the engagement of my cousin this past weekend, the total amount of weddings I have this year has congealed itself into a mass of...4.

That's four plane tickets to IL, four dresses to be bought for three different seasons, four presents I have to provide with money from my own pocket, which is currently about as shallow as a wading pool. On top of all that extra moolah, factor in a wedding I'm involved in which would also include throwing in cash for the bachelorette party and bridal/wedding shower.

Total= My first born

To be honest, I am a dramatic person. I've reached the critical age in which many of my family members, peers and dear, dear friends are tying the captain's knot with their most adoring sailors...and I should probably just relax. It's common. Not everyone waits until the very last minute to say "Okay, fine, let's go buy a house and shoot out some babies" like I always thought I would at 38. This tedious economic situation has just made paying for pegs in the game of life a mite more expensive.

Instead of running around my room like a decapitated turkey, I decided that when I'm not paying off health insurance or student loans, the next available paycheck will be turned into what I now refer to as the WS or "Wedding Savings".

This way, come August when the first one happens, I'll have a small chunk of money to help supplement my American Airlines ticket, a smashing dress from Wear Today Gone Tomorrow and a pint or two at the airport bar.

Now if only I could take the money I save for the occasional coffee and transfer it to the WS. It's just silly to believe that I should have a life outside of work anyway.

Resurection

I apologize for the delay, folks. The posts are few and far between as of late, due to the weird hours of my nannying job (8 o'clock is not a cool time to let the nanny go...I feel like slave labor but I still love it).

With the outbreak of swine flu, my mom's constant shutting of her door to wracking sobs due to patient deaths, and my constant internal issues with the death of my friend Robert, every minuscule detail in my mind is focused on the afterlife. So much so that I have decided to become a mortician/embalmer.

I write them separately as they are two separate entities. One requires me to plaster on a face of mourning while running a funeral home, the other one entitles me to throw my hands into dead bodies and free them of blood while filling them with formaldehyde. Sounds delicious, I know, but it is more than that. It's respecting a person's former body while accepting that the soul is no longer there. Of celebrating their life.

Since my computer wasn't working so well, last week I went to the library to do some old fashioned research on the topic. After a quick search, I gathered up my books and sat down in a "privacy booth" right in front of an older, grouchier looking individual who kept sneaking peeks at my required reading. I guess in a New Jersey library, privacy booth's are merely a suggestion.

In any case, I discovered that sciences of the dead will most likely keep me employed and give me something really amazing to talk about at cocktail parties, bridal showers and, of course, funerals.

And quite possibly it may help me discover why people act the way they do, only to end up on a cold slab in the basement of a Dwight-Wycoff Funeral Home.

We are no different from the person standing next to us, once we kick it.

Now how am I gonna pay for all the rubber gloves...

A Consideration of Overpowering Job Placement

It appears that my job is not a good enough one for my peers. Recently, I started as a live-in nanny for a down-to-earth family in my hometown, which will at one point have benefits (health, auto already exists, etc...). I feel like I've gone through a divorce, because Kaitlin has two houses (sadly, there will not be two Christmases or birthdays). It eats me up being away from my Theodore (the cat, not the boyfriend. He probably sees me less than the cat), and driving across town just to figure out where that one pair of sexy underwear is has begun to wear, but I am starting to enjoy what I do.

This morning, not one, but three friends sent me listings for admin positions in the general area. After taking a moment to gag (I thought I wanted to admin, turns out I'd rather carve my name into my forehead with a knife, sober)I contemplated the position I'm in: Does nannying come with a stigma? Am I a leper? Having succumbed to my broke-ass self by finding a job in a field I know I've competent in, I'm ostracized myself from those corporate ladder climbers who know what a spreadsheet is and use it on a daily basis.

My internship still exists, and every moment I can I talk about it to people who probably think I'm just a stay-at-home mom with a writing problem. I cannot help that sometimes I feel my English degree is pretty much just a piece of paper and not the zillions of hours I put into papers and reading, but that still doesn't give people the right to say my job isn't good enough.

For the few years that I had been a nanny to other families, I used to complain about how I hardly ever was recognized for being more than just a childcare provider. It makes me want to be a mother less, but respect and praise true mothers more. If you're up with a sick kid at 2am when you have to work at 6, when you take time out of your day to swing by the school and pick up your child and his six friends for a playdate, it's a real job.

Another woman I babysit for, Elena (who writes for Miomarmo.com), told me a few lyrics to the "Mom Song", which her daughter was begging her to sing. One line mentioned how "if you don't get paid, you're a mom". It made me laugh, especially because it IS very true. Caring for children is a full time job, one that I'm lucky enough to get paid for, and very fulfilling. I don't have to give birth, I didn't have to raise them, I only have to make their lunches and act as a chauffeur or an occasional listening ear. I have it great, and I'm not stressed.

Best Job EVER. Oh, and I get the reward of making new relationships with another family. Trust beats out a water cooler any day.