more of the same

it seems that i have taken this blogging as jounal phenomenon to the darkest extreme and turned this into a place where i can bitch and pity myself in public in order to get nice reassuring comments from far away friends. i suppose with a title like 'the dead parent's society' one could deduce that i am a bit of a dark wit anyway, and i was setting myself up for melancholia; i'm beginning to think that maybe i should have gone with something cheerier, like ' rainbow brite and the chirpy sunshine band' or ' happy tales of bliss and glee", but really, wouldn't everyone just hate me even more for posting on somthing like that? i think reading blogs can be a nice way to remind yourself that everyone's got their shit to deal with, it's not just you. and so i continue the trend...

i am having major career envy. i finally understand my friends that are sick of hanging out with married or engaged couples. my on-again-off-again friend Sunshine (with whom i am currently mostly on-again) is always bitching about the fact that everyone she knows is getting married and how it makes her feel so alone and single and how she hates hanging out with couples and people who are always talking about their boyfriends. well last night, i spent a very nice girls' night out with some of my career gal friends, and today i feel like a big worthless pile of shit. they were all talking about their jobs, and how much they love their work, and how hard their jobs are, and how busy they are, and how so-and-so had just asked them to be on such-and-such board, and how this project and that project was coming along. and i just sat there, seething with jealousy and feeling about as stupid and uninteresting as i've ever felt in my life. as much as anyone has ever wanted a boyfriend, i want a career, and, dispute it or not, i think that it's much easier to find a boyfriend than a career (though techincally both have about equal power to make you feel miserable and insecure). i listen to my friends who have great jobs that they love and i just feel so lost; i don't know what i want to do, i am almost 30 years old, and i don't know what i want to do! and everyone keeps telling me, "oh you've got plenty of time" and " you don't have to know what you want to do right now" and " you can do many different things in your life", but none of those things make me feel better, especially when faced with so many of my friends and my peers who started out at the same place as me and are now so far down their own paths that i can hardly even see them anymore. i feel like i am sitting at the starting line, and i don't know how to start the race.

i feel like i've become a joke, every week i've got a new career idea, and every week i either lose interest or momentum. i'm too picky, i want my dream job, but i don't have the follow through, and i feel like everyone is just looking at me and clucking their tongues and saying, " if only she wasn't so lazy...". but it's not that i'm lazy (well, not primarily), it's that i don't know where to go. i don't know which path i want to start down, and so i keep putting a foot on one path and then doubting it and then turning around and putting a foot down another path and so forth and so on. not to keep speaking in metaphors, but i feel like i'm standing in the middle of a train station with a ticket in my hand, all paid and ready to go, but i can't read the destination, and my platform doesn't exist. so here i am, a traveler with no destination and no mode of transportation, everything i need except where to go and how to get there.

and J trys to help, but he is so goddamned confident and patient with life. and i can't talk to R, because she's the queen of the career gals, she has always known where she was going and how to get there. and i keep trying to think about my mom, and how she started her career in her late twenties (with a three year old, no less), and my stepmother, and how she didn't go to law school until she was in her thirties, but those things become less comforting as i slip closer and closer to the age that they were when they did finally make up their minds, and i still don't have a clue.

it's at times like this that i really and truly envy my old across-the-street friend Jill. she knew she wanted to be a math teacher from the time we were in middle school. so she went to college, she majored in math and education, and now she teaches high school algebra. just as easy as that.

the other night at work, i overheard a young girl who was in town visiting colleges with her mother. she was fresh-faced and old-fashioned pretty, with the look and the attitude of a girl from a J.D. Salinger short story, all intelligent innocence and grown up idealism. she and her mother were the second pair in line for the show behind an older couple who were asking her about her school visits and her college ambitions. i was inspired by her youth and freshness, happy for her in all of her yet-to-come-ness, until they asked her what she wanted to major in. she said she wanted to double major in theatre and english, she wanted to be a playwright, and the bitterest, most beaten-down part of my soul wanted to run up to her and scream out "NOOOOOOOO!" i was shocked and appalled with myself, but my instinct was to tell her to major in pre-law or business or at least to take some education courses, because you can't do anything with a theatre degree or an english degree (bear with me synge) and you'll just end up careerless and struggling and confused when you're thirty or you'll have to go back to school later. and of course, this instinct made me feel horrible, like i had lost all of my own youthful resolve and hopefullness and creative idealism. of course there are exceptions to the rule, there are people who do make wonderful use of these degrees (ie. Synge, and MAH, and R), who do get a job in their art, and who do find wonderful careers, but could someone please tell me their secret, because i am sick and tired of standing in this train station.