Ugh. It finally hit me. Physiologically speaking, I am an adult.
I don’t dress like an adult; I wear fashionable footware, patterned leggings and oversized T-shirts. I don’t sleep like an adult; I go to bed around 1am and get up at 10, 10:30 if I can wrangle it.
But there, softly illuminated in my tiny bathroom mirror, I can just begin to make out the first wrinkles on my face. Crows feet by the eyes, the barest trace of laugh lines falling towards the corners of my mouth.
If I was to rate the satisfaction I feel towards my life as a whole, including relationships, finance, home and health, I would give it a solid 4/10.
My apartment is smaller and shittier than I’d like. I’m far from getting married and having kids. I have aches and pains that need physiotherapy and massages, but my measly music teacher income can barely afford that. I want to increase my base income, a lofty ambition in my line of work. (Singer-songwriter, private lesson instructor.) I could invest more in this career, but the ceiling sits so low, it’s not much to aspire to.
I just spent a few hours browsing jobs in bigger cities, trying to figure out where to go from here. Every remotely appealing job requires 2-5 years of previous experience in a field I don’t have, technical skills I don’t have. I feel worthless and very lost, like I’ve wandered into a particularly dead-ended region of a vast maze.
I can boast many qualities as a prospective employee: extremely personable, good eye for fashion and design, strong writer and editor, clear communicator, keen attention to detail, dedicated, ambitious, artistic. But I really have no experience working in any jobs besides restaurants, and being a musician. Neither job leads to anything else; serving leads to restaurant management (no thank you), music teaching leads to… more music teaching. At my age, even a two-year program to up my eduction will leave me 30, with no professional experience.
One time, a guy at a party said, Rachel, you could get any guy in this city. You just need to pick one.
Maybe he was just flattering me, but it resonated. I’m full of potential and woefully non-committal. When I put my eggs in one basket, I tend to get bored and forget the basket in favour of some new challenge.
I need to figure out what it is I want to do so that I can do it. Seems like a simple concept, but it doesn’t feel like it today.
sunterland 