the break-up

Change is hard. I knew I'd miss my coworkers in Beeville, but not this much. As much as I kind of felt like I was in limbo there, I guess I really did have a life there. I made it work. I know I can do that here too, but the first day is always hard.

It hurts. I've cried several times today just thinking about how much I miss Beeville Publishing Co. and all the people there. In Beeville, really. How much they welcomed me and made me part of their family. And even though I know I had to move on and there was no way to have a real life for me there, part of me can't believe it's over and it's part of my past now. I said a long time ago that I had learned that you have to break up with places. I've been here before. It's still true. And right now, I'm missing that backwards little town and all of the eccentric people there.

There are a lot of uncertainties for me right now, and that's not something I've traditionally dealt with well. But I have to. I don't know where I'll end up living in Houston, what kinds of opportunities I'll have, or, well, much of anything.

I'm trying really hard to remember the positives right now, after a trying day when all I wanted to do was have Gary and Jason across the hall from me to talk to and laugh with and Delia and Nina up at the front to take care of everyone. But they weren't there. No one was, really. Nobody compares.

But back to the positives. I did meet one new coworker whom I really liked, although she won't be there everyday, but at least I met someone friendly. I'm going to have a lot of freedom and independence here, which is something I really wanted, I think I'm ready for, and will work well for me.

And the biggest plus, the real reason I left such a phenomenal job in Beeville, is having my best friend and my family a 10 minute drive away from me. I don't have to be alone anymore. I guess just at work I do now.

But right now, it still hurts. The break-up is fresh.

looking forward to Monday

Now that I'm actually here in Houston (well, the Woodlands for now), it's time to put some of the things I've been saying (okay, complaining) that I've wanted to do but couldn't due to my location into action.

Thursday (my last day at the Bee-Pic) was much more emotional than I thought it would be. That place was so amazing to me over the last year, and I know I already mentioned that in my previous post, but it's so true it bears repeating. When the girls up front (in the advertising department—editorial is in the back) found out I was leaving, they rushed out to buy a card, have everyone sign it, and whipped up a dessert on the fly. All that for me, someone who'd been there a year when some of them have been working there for 30. It was pretty overwhelming. I'll definitely miss them always. There were tears.

So then Friday, I moved into my grandmother's house in the Woodlands. That was also overwhelming, mainly because I'm not used to having so much family readily available for help. All the times I've moved before, it's pretty much just been me and my mom and dad. The help was awesome, but it was just weird. Plus, the idea of living with my grandmother temporarily seemed great when it was hypothetical, but when I was actually moving in, I started second guessing it. I think this is normal; anytime I've ever moved anywhere, I've second guessed it initially. Making such a big change is always anxiety-ridden, no matter how much you want it. Besides, this really is a temporary arrangement that should only last through the summer. And it will give me time to save up some money and get to know Houston better before I find my own place. I reeeeally hope I can find a roommate, though. I don't think I have a prayer of being able to afford living alone here like I did in Beeville. Nor do I want to in a big, somewhat strange city. But all that will work itself out in time.

I just hate these first couple of days when you move somewhere, before you begin doing what you came there to do. When you don't really know what to do with yourself because you don't know very many people, you have no routine, no regular hang-out spots, no idea of where to go or what to do. All you can do is wait to get into the swing of things. It's probably the only time I look forward to Monday.

But anyway, I do have several projects and things I want to get started. Which is the hard part. Now that I have taken a new job in a major urban area, I feel like I have a real opportunity for my career to really take off. And while I feel like I'm living the dream, a.k.a. going after my dream, I have to wonder/mildly plan for the what if. As in what if it doesn't happen and I'm still only making $30,000 in ten years while not being able to save anything for the future. Eventually, my car is going to wear out and if that happened tomorrow, no way could I afford a new one. And the kicker there is that in my career, I have to have a car. But I have decided not to borrow trouble anymore, in any way.

The point of all of that was that outside of the office, I need to take it up a notch. I've never been an overachiever in the slightest, but at least I have a brain. And when I really want something, I find a way to make it happen. So anyway, the point is that my goal now is to write something everyday. It can be journaling (which will probably be what I mostly do at first), creative writing for fun like poetry, more serious creative writing such as working on some sort of mess I could turn into a book one day, writing features I can try to sell to magazines, or other freelance work I find (I'm trying to get a gig as a contributor for a local magazine, but it's probably a looooong shot). I know I need my main focus/priority to be my full-time job, but how awesome would it be if I could supplement my income by doing other stuff on the side? Hopefully I can find some way to get that started in a meaningful way. I guess I'll just have to see how it goes.

As far as my personal life goes, I'm about to join a swim team, something I've wanted to do for a long time but didn't have one close to me, so I'm pretty excited about that. I would also like to find a way to maybe do some volunteering? We'll see. Plus I'm just excited about all the stuff to do I'm going to have access to now. I'm just going to be trying to make some friends and come out of seclusion.

In any case, I'm ready to get started. With all of it.

bitterSWEET

I took a temporary hiatus from the blogosphere. I had plenty of overflowing thoughts, but I was kind of holding my breath until I found out if I had gotten this job I had interviewed for in Houston. And until I knew what was happening with my tumor.

Well, I'm happy to report that I DID get the job, and I move on Friday! I am so excited to keep moving forward, be closer to friends and family, make NEW friends, and have so much more to do! Also, I'm happy to report that my tumor was removed last Thursday, and other than some minor swelling, I am doing great. I had an awesome surgeon who did a great job and I have had very little pain/discomfort.

I have many reflections I want to make on the conclusion of my year here in Beeville. Like any ending, as much as I eagerly anticipate the future, it is bittersweet. First of all, can we all take a moment to celebrate the fact that I stuck something out for an entire year without freaking out and running away? I think that was part maturity and part figuring out what I want to do with my life. Also, it's very important to mention the great people here in Beeville, particularly at the paper, and I am genuinely sad to be leaving them. I've come to realize that it's impossible to spend any length of time someplace and not get attached to the people you meet there. This is the hardest part about leaving. By now, I can't imagine not being a part of Gary's, Jason's, Jeff's, Bruce's, Stacy's life on a daily basis. Nothing I could say about them or the company here would do them justice. But it must be done. I know I have to go.

I learned more than I ever thought I would here. And I gained so much strength and confidence that I can see in all areas of my life. When I came here, I was scared and shy and self-conscious. I am leaving brave, outgoing and sure of myself. Things happen in such mysterious ways. I have wondered thousands of times over the past year how and why I ended up here of all places. But I stuck it out, even managed to have a good time, and now I'm going somewhere I can build a real life with no plans to leave (what a foreign concept to me!). I'm so unbelievably ready for that.

I know that even with all the experience I've gained here, my new job will still be an adjustment at first. But I feel confident that I made the right decision. I get a good vibe from my new bosses. I think it will be fun, a new challenge, and that I'm doing the right thing by going all-digital (my new job is at an online news company for anyone who may not know). And I have other plans, like trying to do some freelance work on the side to supplement my income and gain even more experience. I also have other writing projects I want to work on. I think now that I'm going somewhere I want to stay, nothing's on hold anymore. No more excuses. No more procrastinating. I also plan on joining a swim team ASAP. I'm very excited about this and the possibility to be involved in and do other things that weren't available to me in Beeville. It's time for me to come out of my cave and not be compromised anymore. I can't even express my excitement.

Bring it on.

quarter life crisis #172

I hate it when I have a crazy dream that I can't get out of my head and puts me in a weird place for the rest of the day.

No, I'm not talking about the nightmare I had a few weeks ago where I was being buried alive while simultaneously sinking in quicksand. Although I still remember that one a little too vividly...

Anyway, every so often, I have a dream where I either a.) have gone back in time and decided not to leave Korea or Prague (depending on what night it is, I guess, although this happens more with Korea); b.) decide to go back to either Korea or Prague in the present. Either of these scenarios makes me feel very happy and triumphant in the dream.

Each time this happens, I wake up disoriented, then disappointed because I realize I am still in Beeville and nothing has changed.

Because these dreams are somewhat recurring in that I have had them consistently for the past year and a half or so, I have to wonder if I'm expressing my deepest desires in my dreams because I don't let myself do that in real life. Or, I'm still not over what happened, as much as I want/pretend to be.

I'm not sure I'll ever really understand why I did the things I did during the whirlwind of experience that was the year 2009 for me. I remember how I felt at the time, but I don't know why I couldn't see past certain things. It doesn't seem like me.

I have days every now and then, still, when I think of Korea and/or Prague and all I feel is a huge sense of loss mixed with defeat. It wasn't supposed to end like that.

I know what I've said recently about wanting to start a life somewhere and be close to my family. Being away from them while overseas was harder than I'd anticipated. This whole job search thing has gotten me all out of sorts and questioning everything.

After all this time and all of these crazy things that I've done, I still don't really know what I want.

to sell out or not to sell out...

I didn't think that upon beginning my job search, I would feel this conflicted. Not that it matters much anyway; it's not like I have any choices until I get offered a position somewhere, but I thought the looking/applying process would be more straightforward.

I thought that I would zero in on jobs at magazines, daily newspapers, and corporation communications/PR divisions. Those would be the only jobs I would consider, and the corporation ones would be only if I supported what the corporation did so that I wouldn't be selling out by taking any of these jobs.

The problem is, selling out becomes a lot more attractive after you've been in the real world for awhile.

Ultimately, what I want to do is to write in some capacity. However, other factors are coming into consideration now (as opposed to a year ago) as I've realized that work isn't everything to me. It's a big thing, don't get me wrong, and I would like to keep caring about what I do, but it's not everything.

For instance, now, I have a job that I like, that's fulfilling (most of the time) and that almost pays the bills (I'll get to that in a minute). I have a great family; they're just far away. I have friends, but they're far away too. I know things could be so much worse. But I also know that I have no future here. If I wanted to continue to be a single loner who dreams up ways to occupy her free time with nothing going on other than work, I could stay.

But if I EVER want to have a family (never mind how many light years away from that I am right now), be involved in things outside of work, meet new people, or spend any time with my existing family and friends, I've gotta get out of here. I don't know if I'm just getting antsy or what, but I feel like all year I didn't let it hit me how much being isolated and cut off from civilization was affecting me, and now that I've begun opening myself up to new possibilities, it's just hit me like a ton of bricks.

Piece #1 of the great puzzle of what I want out of my life was getting a start at a writing career. I don't regret coming here to do that. God only knows where I would be now if I hadn't. But I'm realizing more than I ever did before that there are more pieces to that puzzle. If you're lucky enough to do something you love/believe in and get paid for it, that's great, but at the end of the day, a job really is just a job. Something we all have to do to support ourselves.

Now to the money part of it. I always, always said that as long as I made enough money to live on, I didn't care about it. What did I know? I don't think I'm being greedy. Right now, I make just under what I would need to really survive on my own. My parents pay for my car insurance and cell phone. I pay for everything else. But I literally can't afford to pay for my car insurance and cell phone. The sad truth is, even with a year of experience under my belt in the journalism world, even at a bigger paper or whatever, I can't expect to make much, if any, more than I make now. I'm learning this as I continue my search. One of the first jobs I applied for (this time) was at a daily paper in North Texas. I found out they pay $10,000 less a year than I make now. It made no sense to me, but that's the way it is (I won't be taking that job). I don't know how anybody stays in this field for a long period of time. I don't know I can realistically afford to stay. I don't need to get rich but I do need to pay my bills. I dream about what it would be like to not live paycheck to paycheck. And going back to the family thing, even if I were in a more desirable area, if I want to have a family, I can't be available to a newspaper all the time to go cover meetings after hours and elections long into the night. Again, not to borrow trouble (since that family is really only a figment of my imagination at this time)...

But this leads me to... if I left journalism, where would I go? I've applied for some more PR type jobs, some proofreading jobs, etc., but what else am I really trained for? I have a friend who left journalism a couple of years ago after working at small town papers to go to law school. I've flirted with that idea, but if I'm being honest, the last thing I want to do is go back to school. For a lot of reasons, money included.

All I really want to do is write. And have a life outside of my job. Is that really so much to ask for? Sadly, writers are not valued financially in our society...

Get rid of education? Sure, that's a GREAT idea!

Sometimes, the amount of absolute ignorance just astounds me.

I've been following this whole government shut down thing, and it appears that one of the hang-ups in getting something done is that the Republicans want to cut off federal funding to Planned Parenthood. Of course, they feel this is the way they're going to save all those unborn babies and God will reward them! I can see it now, John Boehner in a superhero outfit with a winged baby painted on his chest!

Of course, each of those babies will instead turn into one of the five screaming toddlers I see with one very young, disheveled single mom at HEB on Saturdays.

I realize that was a sweeping generalization. It might not have even made sense. I know that adamant pro-lifers would argue that so-and-so that the read about/saw on TV/heard speak at a pro-life convention was born because his unwed mother reconsidered her plans to have an abortion. To them I say, for every one of those cases, I could find you at least five kids whose parents are on welfare, who live in broken homes and who end up in jail or on welfare themselves.

I'm not for abortion itself. I don't think anyone is like, "yeah, let's kill babies!" (but of course, are we counting embryos as babies? Last time I checked, God hadn't gotten back to us on when life begins). Anyway, the point is, these pregnant girls, some of whom become mothers, are not getting properly educated about birth control. Or, more importantly, how to figure out if you're doing it for the right reasons (because I bet you a lot of them are doing it just because they think it's what you do in a relationship or they're afraid their boyfriend will leave them if they don't do it).

But you know who educates people about safe sex? PLANNED PARENTHOOD!!!!

Anyone with any amount of common sense will tell you that abortions are only a small percentage of what Planned Parenthood does. And, I've never been in this situation, but I bet you they're not like, Ok, so you want an abortion? Here you go! I bet there is some form of counseling or at least information-giving involved. Of course, I am talking about Republican'ts here, so I shouldn't expect common sense to come into play.

Wake up, GOP! If you do away with Planned Parenthood, people — including, perhaps especially teenagers — are not going to stop having sex. Even those good little Christian boys and girls who are taught that their bodies are bad and wrong. And what happens when good little boys and girls aren't educated? They do it without condoms. They get STDs. They don't even know they need to be tested for STDs (and when they don't even go all the way, nonetheless!). And yes, they get pregnant. Which starts the abortion debate in the first place.

If you don't believe teens need to be sexually active at all, it's your responsibility to talk to your own kids. But ultimately, they're going to find a way to do what they want. And they need to be prepared. And more importantly, there are a lot of kids out there whose parents (sadly) don't care or weren't educated themselves, so they have nowhere but places like Planned Parenthood or the school locker room to get their information.

Call me a bleeding heart. Maybe I am. But if Planned Parenthood gets taken away (or left up to the states, many of whom are bankrupt and/or have ignorant, ahem, rigidly conservative governors), expect a lot more diseases, little mouths to feed, and just plain confusion.

I understand that money is real problem right now for everybody. But let's find ways to move things around without doing away with needed services (don't tell me it can't be done; the Beeville superintendent cut the district budget by $1.1 million without laying off anybody or cutting programs!)

And don't even get me started on what they want to do to the EPA...

trying not to borrow trouble

I've been at the job search for a grand total of three days (not including the weekend).

I've gotten more response than I thought I would at this point (which is kind of cool because it's like I'm a real career person now, not just some college grad begging for a job, any job), but I am still worried/stressed out. Sort of. I have a phone interview tomorrow with a company in Houston that publishes online community newspapers in areas all over the city. It seems really cool and right up my alley. What worries me about it (other than being nervous about the interview itself) is what the salary/benefits will be. They weren't posted on the job ad. That's not such a big deal; I didn't know what my current salary would be when I was going through the interview process and it turned out ok. But now I have to make a certain amount of money (not a lot but you'd be surprised how low journalism jobs can pay) and I have, have, have to have benefits. As in medical insurance.

I'm just nervous that I'm not going to be able to find a job with what I need. And that no one will hire me. I think it's good for me to express these fears now, before my first interview, so that they're out of my system and I can focus on convincing these people that I'm who they want.

The other thing that's stressing me out about the search process, though—other than my growing anxiousness about moving back to civilization—is that all of my response so far has been in the Houston area. That's fine, I wanted to go either there or to Dallas/Fort Worth, but just as I'm beginning to get a real chance to move there (maybe—don't want to jinx it!), most of my family that lives there might be moving to Austin. A major reason I wanted to be in either of those two areas was so that I would be close to family and not stuck out somewhere by myself again. I'm tired of being the one who has to travel 4+ hours. I do like the Houston area though. Although I don't know what it's like not to have family there. It'd be so weird to be there without them. But there's no reason for me to borrow trouble. If I find the right job for me and it's in Houston, I'll still go. After all, there is difference between being family-less in BFE and being family-less in a very large city full of young single people like myself. And I wouldn't be totally family-less anyway. I have a couple of cousins, an uncle, and two very close friends who, as far as I know, have no plans to go anywhere.

If I'm being totally honest, where I'd really like to move is Fort Worth. But I haven't found any jobs there, at least not yet. I do need to remember that I've just begun looking.

Right now, I'm just trying to channel confidence. Cool, collected, poised, articulate confidence.