Been busy every day for the last few weeks; learning, thinking, re-evaluating everything about me. Found out that I’m not too impressed with who I’ve been.
I remember as a kid being full of life, full of ideas. Always the instigator. Always looking for new ways to get old stuff done. Always in trouble because I constantly challenged authority and their way of looking at the way the world works and operates. Even then I knew on an instinctive level that their way was going by the wayside. There was a new way to get things done, and I was gonna lead the pack figuring it out. Then something happened.
Not sure what the something was; maybe the discovery of boys, maybe being told that I was wrong and bad finally worked its way into my head, but by the time I was eighteen, I had given up on the ‘bold pioneer spirit’ thing, and was settling down quite nicely into the dutiful wife and mother thing.
Or so I thought. Eventually the essential ‘who I am’ cried out for release, and I dumped the whole marriage and kids thing like a snake sloughing off its old skin. That was good, but who I became for too many years wasn’t. The ultimate party girl, always working just enough to make money to party, bouncing from one guy to the next. I didn’t know what I wanted to do, but I knew what I didn’t want to do – I didn’t want to be like my brother and some of my sisters, totally content with their spouses, houses, and 2.5 kids. That was just too normal for me. The thought of getting up five days a week for the rest of my life and going to the same boring job, doing the same boring thing day after day, for the same paycheck, was (and still is) so abhorrent to me, I’d puke every time I thought about that kind of lifestyle. I am not slamming my brother or sisters for their choices by any stretch of the imagination; they love what they do. It’s very evident that my brother is an awesome teacher, and I am so happy for him that he found his niche. It’s just a comparison; I have no interest in the rat race, boring 9 to 5 lifestyle. Having someone else determine how much money I’m worth, how much I can make. Prolly why I always seemed to gravitate to jobs like waitressing and bartending, where I controlled how much I made. It wasn’t until very recently when I was asked for the hundredth time, “When are you going back to work?” and I almost puked again thinking about it that I realized this whole attitude with the rat race thing. I want/need a job that will challenge me daily, that I control how much money I make based on how much effort I put into the work.
I think I may have found my niche. I’ve been doing a ton of research and learning on investing – real estate, paper, etc. Some of my family would call it risky, but I call it exciting. To be able to control how much I make, and when and where I make it really gets my blood going. I will never settle for ‘normal.’ I realize that now, and now that I do realize it, I feel as if a huge weight that I’d been carrying around for too many years is rolling off my shoulders. All of a sudden I’m looking at quitting smoking and drinking seriously; where for years and years I used both as a coping mechanism, now suddenly they are little more than this ‘thing’ that’s getting in the way of my dreams and goals.
Yes, dreams and goals. Finally got some that actually fit me for the first time in my life. They would be traditionally thought of as masculine things, which is prolly why they were never presented to me as options. I didn’t have the penis, so therefore I couldn’t possibly succeed as an investor. What a crazy world we live in; one where body parts determine what you can and can’t do.
Now I’m off to the Alaska Club to have my first appointment with my personal trainer. Time to get busy!
