I am so sleepy today. And grumpy. Both not a very good combination. Lately, I haven't been sleeping soundly. Sure, blame it on the wedding or how much work I am doing lately, but it isn't fun to wake up in the morning stomping my feet, wishing more than anything that I could get back into bed again.
This morning, I was standing there with a pout on my face, hair all over the place, in my favorite Marines t-shirt of Brian's, whining about nothing and everything. While brushing my teeth, I took a moment to think about how my day was going to go today. I was to go the office to be swamped with work, run around like a crazy nut, then directly after work I have to go to my second job at the restaurant. Tonight at 5 o'clock, all that I want to do is go home, finally watch one of the Netflix rentals that has been sitting on the TV armoire for almost a month, and drink some wine with B. It's just not going to happen.
Do I like my job? It's a crapshoot. I like that I have the security of working for a great company that gives me tremendous benefits. I like that I am pretty decent at what I do, and enjoy helping people that need it. On the flip side, I hate that most of my waking life is spent sitting at this desk, behind this computer screen. It's starting to weigh on me that I should have concentrated on what I was best at, so that I wouldn't have a 8-5 job on my plate, working for corporate America.
At this point in my life, I want to be doing something that is making my heart swell with pride. Something that I know in my heart, no one is better than me at. Something that makes life unconventional and exciting. To be out there on my own, making my own rules and my own hours. Lately, its all that I can think about.
I kept saying over the past year and a half, "Wait until the wedding is over to do anything drastic." Well, the wedding is only seventy-three days away. It's now or never. I am worried that after I'm married, I will just push this feeling of persuing my dreams away again, because of something else. Wait until the year is over. Wait until all the debt is gone. Wait until we have enough money to buy a house. Wait, wait, wait.
Well, I don't want to wait anymore. I'm putting my f*cking foot down. Ashley told me the last time we talked about this, "You have to get out of that job. It's just not good for you." And she's right! Could it be that simple? Just walk away from the job, and find something that flatters you and makes you feel magnificient when you wake up every morning? Could be.
Since I was a little girl, I have always had a big imagination. I loved to read stories that helped where I could imagine that I was the main character. From Anne of Green Gables (since I am adopted, I imagined that could have been me getting into trouble with Matthew and Marilla) to the Secret Garden (imagining that the overgrown weeds behind the shed in the backyard was my eden waiting to be discovered). Being that silly bookworm is what made me realize that as much as I wanted to read the stories, I wanted to be the person telling them.
Throughout my life, writing came very easily for me. I was the dork out of my group of friends that actually looked forward to writing term papers or essays for assignments. I got a thrill out of it. I even wrote papers for other people.
During troubled times in my life, I would fall away from the writing. I was almost afraid to write, for fear of what I would see coming out on the page. It would make me remember what I had imagined for myself, and how far away I had fallen from those pictures in my mind as a little girl. I was scared to disappoint myself.
As I have said before, I am more content in my life now than I ever have been. Ironically, the writing has begun to flow again. Is it all good? I don't know. It's rusty because I need to get reacquainted with myself. It's like finding an old friend. You know them well enough, but there is a lot that you have to get to know again. So, as an agreement to myself, I've decided to keep signing on to this stinking blog every day (sleepy or not) and writing so that the words will keep squeezing out.
Someday, I am counting on something amazing spilling out of me. Something that I can't share on a blog, but can share in a novel. I have a lot of stories to tell. Some incredible, some sad and some completely inappropriate to be shared on a blog, but could be part of a guilty pleasure read that I would love to put on a shelf someday under an alias.
Part of writing, as I have come to know it, is to hold a picture in your mind of a place or time in your life and to be able to do it justice with words. Writing gave me the second love in my life, which is photography. Do I consider myself a photographer? Not yet. I think that you have to earn that title. There are times where I am looking around at faces or the way the candlelight is flickering over a table and I think to myself..."What a photograph that would make." I think that I have an eye for it. If I could get behind the lens of a camera and capture what it is I truly see, then that would be something.
So, with the hubby's permission, I bought myself a swanky new camera, complete with lenses, guidebooks and a tripod. I consulted all of the talented photographers that I look up to in my life, including Auntie, Caitlyn and my cousin Keri. I wanted to know how to get started. I have had nothing but good feedback. My cousin Keri went after her dream, and now has her own photography studio. Auntie and Caitlyn are self-taught and really talented. Kind of like the people that you hate because they can eat whatever they want, and not gain a pound.
Well, the camera has been in my hands every night since Monday evening. It's all set and ready to go. I have been playing with the focus and different shutter speeds. I am even leafing through a course book to help me learn as thoroughly as possible.
It's a little intimidating, whipping out a camera that you have never had the pleasure of working with before. Julie keeps telling me to post the pictures I have been taking, but its like I can't yet. I need to make my debut in the right way. To show I have half a clue about what I want to say with my pictures. I am going to take Steph to Larchmont with me this weekend and take some pictures of the water to get me started.
As exciting as it is for me to be on the brink of possibly a new profession, or serious new hobby, it is a little frightening, too. For example, I plan on taking my new camera to my niece Caitlin's first Communion on Sunday. It's kind of nervewracking, like a first date.
I can't be afraid. I believe that being fearful of something actually summons those things to us. That if we focus on whatever it is we want with good feelings, it will happen. So, I am just focusing on the pictures that I will be hanging in my home someday of our honeymoon in South Africa, listening to visitors say, "Where did you buy that gorgeous photo?" and me responding, "I took it."
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