4.21.2010

Think way back

Do you remember the commercial with the kids graduating high school? Someone asks one kid what he plans to do after graduation and his answer is, "Go home. Make a sandwich."

It cracks me up to this day. After Monday, I feel like that kid. It has been years since I have been off work, unemployed and with no known follow on job. For today I am fine. I have laundry to do, naps to take and if I were at work, I couldn't have made a quick run downtown to drop off the badges my husband forgot at home. See? It's not all bad. And after that, guess what? I came home and made a sandwich (PB & J).

In the broader scheme I guess I still feel this way. yes, two weeks after my own high school graduation I left for college and stayed there for four years. I graduated with the rare benefit of knowing I would be a second lieutenant in the Army. Then when I left the army, I was that kid. I was home every day, wondering what to do next. I eventually took a job as a contractor working for the Army. That's been my very general job description since then. We moved to D.C. and I did some more soul searching and then I took another contracting job with the Army (notice a pattern?) By then, even my husband had left the Army and worked for a pharmaceutical company. But now he too works as a contractor supporting the (wait for it) Navy.

Most of the time I can accept that this is not who I am. I know that this allows me to pay the bills and fund the things that I enjoy that aren't free and I have to accept that I don't have to love my job, but not dreading it is also a huge plus.

Sometimes you think, "Is that it? Is this all there is?" Sometimes life is pretty good. Sometimes you wish you were that high school kid again, not because you loved high school so much, but because at the time, it really seemed like the possibilities were endless.

No comments: