Crises
If you know me, or if you've read my blog, you'll know that I am a passionate person. And when I write things on this blog, I tend to overshare, and the length of the average post can be a bit overwhelming. So, obviously, I can write well.
I am a talented writer.
I don't feel bad saying this. I have been told time and time again that my writing is above average.
I've written compelling application essays for friends that get them accepted into colleges.
I've written term papers that my teachers have congratulated me on in front of the entire class.
I've had college assignments entered into competitions.
I've had professors ask me to use my writing as an example for future students.
I've had a job on a campus newspaper.
I was selected for a coveted writing internship on a well-known news-based website.
I am a talented writer.
But I hate it.
Well, I hate writing with a deadline. I hate being forced to write something. I hate being assigned a topic unless I'm learning something from it. I hate deadlines, and editors, and people keeping tabs on my progress. Simply put, I hate writing when it doesn't come from me, for me.
"Being a writer" has never, ever been an option for me. I fancied the notion of becoming a journalist way back in 7th grade, but I quickly gave that up in favor of psychology. And I gave that up to be a hotel manager. And I gave that up to study Radiology. And that one tanked to make way for film producer. And now I'm gearing up to start a Surgical Technician program in the fall. So, obviously, I have no idea what I actually want to do with the rest of my life. I need to make money somehow, and I refuse to work in retail forever (1. because it's crappy pay, and 2. because holy effing shit, man, that would suck more than words).
I haven't given up in the production dream, but I know that until I can make solid connections in the business, I'm never going to be able to succeed. For now, I need to make money, and going to school to get a degree for a job that's never going away (or at least won't be going away in my foreseeable future, anyway) is a good idea. I can get in, make money, and then make some connections.
All my life, people have told me that I can do anything. I can be anything I want to be. The problem with that is that I'm not good with vague. I need one thing. One thing I'm meant to do, otherwise I have far too many interests to pursue and not enough time to fully devote myself to all of them, which means I'm overextending myself.
And we all know that I do not do well when I try to do too many things at once. As a traitor to the female "multi-tasking" propaganda, I feel very comfortable in saying: I do one thing at a time, I do it very well, and then I move on. (Props to anyone who can name that reference!)
When I worked at the hotel, I would go crazy on days when I was working both the buffet and the line, because I would have no choice but to neglect one area in favor of the other. When I'm at school, I can't talk to my neighbor and listen to the lecture at the same time, so I ignore people. (This often leads into the whole "I have no friends and I don't know why" debacle, but I'll save that re-hashing for another time.) At the Home Depot, I can't just ignore customers to talk to my co-workers. I have priorities. I have a set order to things. I can't focus on more than one thing at a time.
So it comes as a strange sort of chink in my personal armor to be able to say that while I can only focus on one physical task at a time, I cannot for the life of me choose one thing that I want to do for the rest of my life.
People talk all the time about major moments in their lives that changed their entire future. Mine was in 2005, when I was chosen to take an aptitude test in school. I didn't understand what the random parts of this test would tell the people monitoring us back then. Who would have thought that being able to find 37 different words made out of the same letters as one single word was a huge skill? Or being able to rattle of 12 different words all starting with the same letter in under 30 seconds? What purpose did those tests serve, other than to work my poor, 14-year-old heart into a frenzy.
A week later, after the scores had been tallied and totaled, the school called my parents and myself in to discuss the results. The scale ranged from below average to above average, and I had scored above average in nearly every test category. What did this tell us? That I "could do anything" I wanted. At first, this was amazing news. "You can be anything, Chloe! Pick or choose, you can do it!"
It wasn't until later that I realized it was actually a curse.
"I can do anything" became my motto. It became who I am. I'm the one who always volunteers when no one else will. I'm the first one to sign up for things. I am always looking to learn a new skill if it means I don't have to ask someone for help. In fact, asking for help is my absolute least favorite thing to do.
I hate relying on people to do things for me when I know I could just as easily do it myself. So why is it so god damned hard for me to choose something that I want to do for the rest of my life?
Because I can do anything. The possibilities are endless. If I put my mind to it, I can do it. I'm the living embodiment of all of those 90's TV sitcom families telling their children they can do it if they just try hard enough.
But the problem with that is that people start to look at you differently.
You start to look at yourself differently.
I convince myself I can do it myself, so I don't need help, and no one's offering because they don't think I need or want it. I'm too proud to ask, and they're too afraid of offending me to offer. It's a vicious, horrible, painful cycle.
The worst part, though, is the indecision. Do I want people to look at me and say, "She knows what she's doing," or do I want them to look at me and think, "Maybe I should ask someone else?"
I get offended when a customer looks straight at me, clearly wanting to ask a question, but then turns to someone else instead, having deemed them more knowledgeable. In all truthfulness, they probably are more knowledgeable about the subject. I work in a hardware store. I know next to nothing about hardware. Of course I'm not going to be able to answer their intricate questions.
But at the same time, I know that if they do come to me with a question I can't answer, I feel like a failure. After all, I work at a hardware store. I should probably know something about hardware if I want to keep working there.
Welcome to my brain, ladies and gents. This is what my thought process is like, 24/7.
A constant back-and-forth, disagreements, self-doubt, and a healthy dose of sarcasm are the agenda all day, every day up in here.
All I want to do is have a job where I can stand on my own financially and stop having to rely on people. I want to live in a place where I make the decisions. I want to work in a job I truly love, and be a happy person, because the truth is, where I am right now, I'm miserable. I'm a miserable person who can find random bright spots to stave off the grey.
I'm drowning in indecision and doubt. And I need a life preserver, but I don't know if I'm too proud to take it if I saw it.
I am a talented writer.
I don't feel bad saying this. I have been told time and time again that my writing is above average.
I've written compelling application essays for friends that get them accepted into colleges.
I've written term papers that my teachers have congratulated me on in front of the entire class.
I've had college assignments entered into competitions.
I've had professors ask me to use my writing as an example for future students.
I've had a job on a campus newspaper.
I was selected for a coveted writing internship on a well-known news-based website.
I am a talented writer.
But I hate it.
Well, I hate writing with a deadline. I hate being forced to write something. I hate being assigned a topic unless I'm learning something from it. I hate deadlines, and editors, and people keeping tabs on my progress. Simply put, I hate writing when it doesn't come from me, for me.
"Being a writer" has never, ever been an option for me. I fancied the notion of becoming a journalist way back in 7th grade, but I quickly gave that up in favor of psychology. And I gave that up to be a hotel manager. And I gave that up to study Radiology. And that one tanked to make way for film producer. And now I'm gearing up to start a Surgical Technician program in the fall. So, obviously, I have no idea what I actually want to do with the rest of my life. I need to make money somehow, and I refuse to work in retail forever (1. because it's crappy pay, and 2. because holy effing shit, man, that would suck more than words).
I haven't given up in the production dream, but I know that until I can make solid connections in the business, I'm never going to be able to succeed. For now, I need to make money, and going to school to get a degree for a job that's never going away (or at least won't be going away in my foreseeable future, anyway) is a good idea. I can get in, make money, and then make some connections.
All my life, people have told me that I can do anything. I can be anything I want to be. The problem with that is that I'm not good with vague. I need one thing. One thing I'm meant to do, otherwise I have far too many interests to pursue and not enough time to fully devote myself to all of them, which means I'm overextending myself.
And we all know that I do not do well when I try to do too many things at once. As a traitor to the female "multi-tasking" propaganda, I feel very comfortable in saying: I do one thing at a time, I do it very well, and then I move on. (Props to anyone who can name that reference!)
When I worked at the hotel, I would go crazy on days when I was working both the buffet and the line, because I would have no choice but to neglect one area in favor of the other. When I'm at school, I can't talk to my neighbor and listen to the lecture at the same time, so I ignore people. (This often leads into the whole "I have no friends and I don't know why" debacle, but I'll save that re-hashing for another time.) At the Home Depot, I can't just ignore customers to talk to my co-workers. I have priorities. I have a set order to things. I can't focus on more than one thing at a time.
So it comes as a strange sort of chink in my personal armor to be able to say that while I can only focus on one physical task at a time, I cannot for the life of me choose one thing that I want to do for the rest of my life.
People talk all the time about major moments in their lives that changed their entire future. Mine was in 2005, when I was chosen to take an aptitude test in school. I didn't understand what the random parts of this test would tell the people monitoring us back then. Who would have thought that being able to find 37 different words made out of the same letters as one single word was a huge skill? Or being able to rattle of 12 different words all starting with the same letter in under 30 seconds? What purpose did those tests serve, other than to work my poor, 14-year-old heart into a frenzy.
A week later, after the scores had been tallied and totaled, the school called my parents and myself in to discuss the results. The scale ranged from below average to above average, and I had scored above average in nearly every test category. What did this tell us? That I "could do anything" I wanted. At first, this was amazing news. "You can be anything, Chloe! Pick or choose, you can do it!"
It wasn't until later that I realized it was actually a curse.
"I can do anything" became my motto. It became who I am. I'm the one who always volunteers when no one else will. I'm the first one to sign up for things. I am always looking to learn a new skill if it means I don't have to ask someone for help. In fact, asking for help is my absolute least favorite thing to do.
I hate relying on people to do things for me when I know I could just as easily do it myself. So why is it so god damned hard for me to choose something that I want to do for the rest of my life?
Because I can do anything. The possibilities are endless. If I put my mind to it, I can do it. I'm the living embodiment of all of those 90's TV sitcom families telling their children they can do it if they just try hard enough.
But the problem with that is that people start to look at you differently.
You start to look at yourself differently.
I convince myself I can do it myself, so I don't need help, and no one's offering because they don't think I need or want it. I'm too proud to ask, and they're too afraid of offending me to offer. It's a vicious, horrible, painful cycle.
The worst part, though, is the indecision. Do I want people to look at me and say, "She knows what she's doing," or do I want them to look at me and think, "Maybe I should ask someone else?"
I get offended when a customer looks straight at me, clearly wanting to ask a question, but then turns to someone else instead, having deemed them more knowledgeable. In all truthfulness, they probably are more knowledgeable about the subject. I work in a hardware store. I know next to nothing about hardware. Of course I'm not going to be able to answer their intricate questions.
But at the same time, I know that if they do come to me with a question I can't answer, I feel like a failure. After all, I work at a hardware store. I should probably know something about hardware if I want to keep working there.
Welcome to my brain, ladies and gents. This is what my thought process is like, 24/7.
A constant back-and-forth, disagreements, self-doubt, and a healthy dose of sarcasm are the agenda all day, every day up in here.
All I want to do is have a job where I can stand on my own financially and stop having to rely on people. I want to live in a place where I make the decisions. I want to work in a job I truly love, and be a happy person, because the truth is, where I am right now, I'm miserable. I'm a miserable person who can find random bright spots to stave off the grey.
I'm drowning in indecision and doubt. And I need a life preserver, but I don't know if I'm too proud to take it if I saw it.
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