I love you, Saturday, with all my heart
Well, week one of the new job is over, and I am exhausted as fuck, but I think it's all going to work out really well. Training is tiring, no matter the job situation, but I already feel confident that this is a job I'm going to get good at. The people seem genuinely nice, not fakey-covering-up-discontent nice, and my supervisor seems pretty cool, too. My benefits are actually really good, the workplace atmosphere is busy but fairly relaxed, and my job comes with a backlog of projects that will require me to use a number of skills in my skill set that I actually enjoy and feel confident about. It's not a high-responsibility position, but it's enough responsibility to feel useful and like there is room for independent initiative, and I super, super, REALLY don't want to be in charge of other people right now, so I like where I'm at. Honestly, I think this is going to go well, and I think I'll be reasonably content if not gloriously happy, but I will quite happily take "content" for a job situation, definitely.
Next on the agenda is to find an apartment, which I haven't even really started to do yet. But I think moving into a place by November 1 is a good goal, so that's what I'm shooting for. Wish me luck!! I really want to find a place I'll feel good about settling into for a while, but as with the job search, I'm willing to scale down my needs as necessary depending on how well it goes. The important thing for me right now is to get into my own place, with a very small number of minimum requirements for that space.
I have to say this "achievable goal" thing is really working out for me. Seriously, it's like I've learned a whole new way to approach life that makes so much more sense than all the bullshit expectations regarding who I'm supposed to be and how I'm supposed to live, the ones I've always struggled with even though I come from a counter-culture family and social community that supports a critique of traditional notions of "success" and "achievement."
I've come to realize that an unfortunately large part of my resistance to traditional success ladders relates to some mental/emotional health issues that I need to address. But a lot of my ambivalence and struggle around those types of life path come from the multi-directional identity pressures of my complicated class background. Growing up educated and supported in a family of artists and musicians, some of whom have traditional education and some of whom are largely self-educated, while also being working class, sometimes actually poor, and also growing up in a poor and working class social context of friends and rural community...well, it's really complicated. And I've got complicated issues around living inside or outside mainstream paradigms of "normal" life goals and "normal" definitions of success and achievement.
But I feel I've really hit on something here with deciding to just take myself where I am-- overeducated and chronically underemployed, with a lot of student loan debt, some mental health issues that need to be addressed, and a history of being really unhappy in jobs where I've had to be a supervisor and participate in the bureaucratic power hierarchy at that level--and ditch the angst about "living up to my potential" or "finding my calling" or some bullshit. I have been killing myself over that stuff since I was in, like, grade school, good lord.
Instead, why don't I try thinking about how I would like to feel during the day, mostly every day, and what things I would like to be able to do that would make life generally nicer and happier, in both the short and longer term. So, how about a nice so-called "entry level" position (which I find usually end up being incredibly complex and critical to the overall operation of whatever organization) that uses skills I enjoy using, with some nice people, and that will enable me to do several things I would like to be able to do, in order to enjoy my life on a day-to-day and also long-term basis. That, it turns out, is a way of thinking about my choices that makes my goals very achievable.
Anyway, now to find an apartment, and also figure out my benefits package and how to actually access it for better living.
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