#181 - Are you happy with the person you have become Obviously, I am not a mom…so I will just skip that part and go with the generalized “Am I happy with the person I have become?” Am I the person I thought I was going to be when I was a child? Nope, not by a long shot! I thought I was going to be a “cake decorator” was I was very young, that did not happen, mostly because I have zero artistic talent…even if I do still attempt to be crafty, and it is all really following a pattern or someone telling me exactly what to do. Then I wanted to be a teacher (high school math was my goal), I actually went to college for this one! Or rather, I met with the only teaching advisor they had at the local community college (who was an English teacher) and she told me that it would never happen….if I wanted to be a teacher, teaching English was my only option! Yeah, o…not for me thanks! I am horrible at some of the “grammar stuff”…you do not want me teaching my bad habits to anyone’s kids!
Then, I found a job as a cashier at a grocery store…this was a job I absolutely loved! I had to interact with people in very brief bursts, it was hard work, but nothing I could not do, and since it was a small store with many departments, I gained many skill sets there. After working there for a few years, I then got the chance to be trained to take over the Saturday shifts in the “community post office” that was located in the store. If I thought I was good as a cashier…I was awesome as a postal worker! Remember back there where I said I wanted to teach math? That is because numbers and I have a great relationship! I am good with numbers! I started my training in September; when things slowed down for the season in the store (resort town…summer and ski season were when we were busy) and by Christmas, I was thrown in without my trainer! This was not because I was ready to run the show…no, she got pneumonia the week of Christmas and could not come in! We had over 300 mailboxes (not nearly as many as a regular PO, but with only 1-2 people doing all the work it is a lot of boxes), and mail had to be sorted and put in each box, “front counter” work needed to be attended to when there was a customer…and let’s face it, the line is always long at Christmas time! Not only that, but we also accepted all forms of package delivery for our box holders, UPS, FedEx, Roadrunner (now called FedEx ground, I believe), and DHL just to name a few. On a “slow” day that week, UPS and FedEx only delivered about 100 packages…each! It took myself and my “helper”, a nice woman who only came in on Saturdays to help sort the packages, the full 8 hours to get the mail sorted as a general rule that week and that was if I could pry myself away from selling stamps and getting packages ready and paid for UPS to pick up and ship that afternoon! I made many friends that week though! The woman who was “postmaster” was kind of a “witch” when it came to the mail…people were always at the window asking for their mail early…for me, that’s one less box I had to stuff and was happy to get rid of it! She, on the other hand, would never give them their mail early. You know the saying “you attract more bees with honey than with vinegar”. Yeah…it is totally true! Not that gifts are a measure of anything, but that winter, I made more in tips than I think I would have had I been in a job where tips are a common occurrence! Have you ever tipped the person selling you a book of stamps?
Anyway, I stayed in this job, working as a cashier, deli clerk, gas attendant (in Oregon it is illegal to pump your own gas), and postal worker for about 5 years. Then, I got it in my head that I wanted to be a Pharmacist…with the encouragement of my significant other, I quit my job to go to college full-time, or rather at a job that had more flexible hours and allowed me to attend college full-time and work part-time. I stayed in that job, at a call center for a little over one year…call center work will suck your soul out of you…no one wants to talk to you and your entire job safety depends on how high your call rate is (or in my sister’s case, how many after call surveys said 100% and not 0%...)! IF you dipped below 10 completed surveys an hour, you were in trouble! This is why folks, when you get those “you came in for service, how was it?” type calls…the caller is talking so damned fast! Figure that 100 people an hour are hanging up on them automatically…some who answer are a wrong number because the owner of the product (in my case I was calling on BMW new purchases and service visits) didn’t give the correct one or moved, and most aren’t even home and it is someone else in the home! Granted, I can talk extremely fast…and I had read the questions a bajillion times too…I rarely needed to even look at my computer screen with the script coming up line by line…I was crocheting while talking and clicking the numbered buttons for heaven’s sake! I left that job so that I could fit even more school into my life.
During most of the last 12 years or so, I have also worked for my Mother “on the side” as a housekeeper (she owns a housekeeping business) and most recently as her bookkeeper (Did you know that bookkeeper is one of very few if not the only word in American words, possibly the English language, that has three repeated letters in a row?). I now do this for “free” as I cannot do it across state lines and get paid for it. So, that leads up to my move to Washington…no job since, hence the term “House-girlfriend”…I’m not a wife, or a mom, so I’m not a housewife or a SAHM. Another term I have been using, at least in my head, is SAHNM, or Stay-at-home-non-mom.
So, not leading the life job wise I expected for myself…family wise, not where I thought I would be there either! My parents met in high school and were married a few years later; this is also how “great loves” are portrayed in the movies…so why could not I find it?!? It is apparently because I was not born in the right decade or area to meet my “Mr. Right” in high school. I had to kiss many frogs to find him too! To get here, I was ignored in high school, at least in the dating sense, did not do much dating out of high school either. I did meet someone while I worked as a cashier, but he was much older and related to a woman I worked with. He had his own set of issues and we didn’t last long at all…I met several more tiny frogs and eventually landed myself a bullfrog! My, now ex-husband was probably the biggest mistake I ever made, but I suppose without him, I would not have met my mate. Not that he had any part in it, just that I would not have been looking if it had not have been for meeting my ex. I sort of kind of maybe got along well with a guy before I met my ex, we are still good friends today, though semi-strained and hundreds of miles apart now. It is hard having friends you only see once every few years! Nevertheless, we have been “online buddies” since I was 19 years old and I still consider him a friend. Things may have gone differently if I had not met my ex though.
I met “Mr. Right” online too (not high school damn it), we each had various singles profiles up online and at the time, a lot of the services were free, today’s online personals are locked up tight unless you break out the credit card, it’s really sad! Anyway, the particular site we met through (Yahoo) did not allow contact info to be traded at that time (they wanted the money), so I got creative when I found his profile! I added a note to my own profile with some very blatant hints as to where I could be found (my IM screen name). Low and behold, 6 months later, he actually saw it! It took us another 6 months to get around to meeting, but the end of last month, we celebrated 8 years of us being together! We are not married, life just seems easier this way…not that I would turn it down, but for now I am “okay” being classified as a “Domestic Partner”….not just for the GLBT community anymore! As a “DP”, I get all the health care benefits I would as his “wife”, the only thing I do not have is “half the house” if we were to call it quits.
I also expected to be a Mom by now! I’m 31 years old now, when my Mother was my age, I was 4 years old…my little sister is getting ready for her 4th child, yup….not where I thought I’d be… Not a lot I can say here about it. I’m as healthy as I can be, I take all the right vitamins (been talking prenatal vitamins for something like 3 years straight because the Doctor told me to take them while we were trying to conceive), I’m working on the weight…down 30 pounds in 10-ish months, and we keep on “trying”, it just isn’t happening.
So, am I happy with the person I have become? I do not have the job I “want”, or the education, but I am happy with what I have. I did not meet the man I “want” in high school, but we did meet eventually, so I am happy there too. I am not happy about not having kids, but I figure that will come when I am ready too…but it had better hurry up! So, yes, I am happy with the person I have become…she just needs some more tweaking here and there!
Are You Happy?: 24 Self Tests to Assess Your Happiness and Scientifically Proven Techniques to..
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