happy 2011. i haven't quite tired of telling people happy new year (yet) as a greeting. there is something pleasant to me about welcoming a new year and it has nothing to do with the possibilities ahead. i'm far too much of a cynic for that. i feel like it's probably just the opposite. while 2010 was, i would say, an all around pretty good year, i'm glad that it is done. i had all i could take of it and we parted in a sensational fashion. so here we are, at the dawn of a new year, i'm struggling to learn the upgrades on my computer at work and thinking, like i do, about something more interesting. i mean, don't get me wrong, pulling lists and entering data is super great and everything, it is far more pleasant to day dream about what i would do if i won the 330 million dollar jackpot in the lottery tonight (quit my job, first thing). don't get me wrong, i do really like my job, it just kind of seems to me that i am not actually the type that was made for the 9-5. when i started, it was like the most glorious idea i had ever heard. regular employment, health insurance, personal days, evenings off...and those things are still really great. however that whole, get to work by 9am thing is really old. and the sometimes trivial things that i get caught up with my boss on. i know better than to complain (too much) online so i'll leave it there.
anyway, i was chatting with some old friends recently about work and what not and it got me thinking. i was talking with my friend jen last week about my job and my performance review that happened before our break and about how i explained my former work in the political world to my current boss. and as i spoke to my boss about that, there was a certain fondness that i can't avoid. there are lots of things that i miss and i usually just chalk that up to me being a hopeless nostalgic fool. i still remember how shitty politics can get, especially campaigns and i'm in no rush to jump onto another campaign. the thing that conversation brought up, and several other conversations in the same time period brought up, is that for me, politics is an undeniable passion. i wish i could just be a consultant and get to do my favorite parts of a campaign and know that i'll still have a job when it's all over. i said to jen that while i like my job and the experience that i am getting, i'm fairly certain i am doing the wrong thing (assuming there is actually a wrong and right thing to do in life.) she said to me "who isn't?" and went on to tell me a story about a grad school friend who is kind of like her eeyore who is apparently notorious for remarking that no one knows if they are doing the right thing. that made me like this person who i've never met. kindred spirit, you know.
i've spent the last couple hours in a text conversation with my friend michael who is telling me about his dreams as they pertain to real estate and something about a yellow brick road and emerald city. he explained how this has been a long time dream of his but a teacher we had in middle school pointed out to him why this was an unrealistic dream. michael and i have been friends since middle school, which also happens to be the first time i had a faculty member (she was my school counselor) shoot down my aspirations of being a writer. this got me to thinking about what the hell was wrong with these adults that they would steer kids away from something they were passionate. i remember very clearly what my counselor said to me; i was too smart to do something as silly as writing novels. i'm pretty sure ray bradbury, jd salinger and oscar wilde (among the other numerous authors i had to read during my education) would probably disagree that writing was something silly that only the unintelligent should do. so here my friend and i are, more than a decade past those dreams, still thinking about them and discussing them as we would like to spin them into reality.
these ideas have a lot more to do with each other than it might appear at the moment. fear not, i'll bring it together. i have all these pipe dreams that float around in my mind, writing, holding (real) elected office (someday...far from now...really far), being a consultant, etc. i've always been a dreamer but have never been good at taking the leap into what i think is the "right" thing for me to do. the hesitation, the fear is ridiculous. i know i can offer advice like "if you don't try, how will you know" and "it's better to try and fail then wonder what if" but i don't tend to follow any of the advice that i give. it's a little bit comforting to know that some of my oldest friends feel the same way but i do think that speaks ill of our educational experience that we all shared (the three of us went k-12 in the same district, 7-12 in the same schools) for not fostering that dreamy quality that kids so easily posses but that's a rant for another time.
so again blogging world, happy new year. i look forward to posting another half dozen times of so in 2011. just kidding, maybe i'll actually post more, who knows.
from the girl who likes to high five strangers and wish them a happy new year...
until next time...
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