i’ve always thought that where my story erred was when i took the consulting job. there’s something about where things went with my life after that, like things stagnated. i lived between worlds, literally: i had my home life when i wasn’t working, and i would travel across a country when i was working. my whole life went on hold. i didn’t volunteer anymore, there wasn’t any time to have a crush, to fantasize about men that could have been. i suppose i read, i wrote. basically, i just grieved an unrequited relationship for three years.
i really don’t think that timeline was supposed to be for me, like it wasn’t my destiny, but i took the job. i paused everything, i grew bitter and unhappy and restless, determined to get out and i had one way out that i really wanted. i spent years essentially preparing for school, for an impending move. i had nothing to lose at that point, because it was the status quo or change. i spent a lot of time at Pilot Coffee Ossington, an insane amount of time, an experience that I’ll never get back and that others will never capture, those months just before Covid hit and I would drive down to Ossington by 8 AM to take advantage of free parking until noon so that I could study for my GRE and write and edit my essays. I invested years in preparing myself for who I wanted to be: I was going to be a girl who went to grad school, I was going to move, I was going to pivot fields.
I did it in the end! Not on the timeline I had anticipated, but I have maintained that it was God’s plan, it really was. He was looking out for me, he bought me a year and a half to recover from pain, embarrassment of being passed over for promotion, to recoup, to save up for school, to apply for scholarships and learn the game, to feel optimistic for the future, to be excited for what was to come, to feel like change was imminent and I would embrace it. I was ready to reinvent myself, per the pin that J gave me. And I do feel that way. I reinvented myself.
But I still think that if I hadn’t taken the consulting job, my life would have been very different. Who knows if for better or worse, it’s so hard to tell. But I think the person I was at home would have been more present, I would have more time to reflect. Flying all the time suspended my mental state, I always had an excuse to not examine my life.
Everything has changed since then, since what I might call this period of my life where I was in two places at once, but never moving forward. The pandemic, stay at home orders, were largely good things that happened to me. Obviously the gym was a loss, a huge loss. The coffee shop too. But I liked being at home, I spent a lot of much needed time to reflect, to confront myself and my flaws, to right my course, to figure out myself and my plans. I realized things that I regretted, I replayed scenarios in my head constantly, able to recognize my role in things that I had formerly denied any responsibility, the way I had shifted blame on why that quasi-unrequited romance had ended so poorly for me and how I had blamed him for it all but the pandemic gave me the time to confront who I was, to recast myself as partially to blame. I became a stronger writer, and I must admit that I’ve regressed since then. Perhaps I haven’t been reading enough, but I think I also fell too deep into a depression where creativity had no chance of surviving. It went to a place to desiccate and wane.
I have wanted to write to take inventory of my life, to right my passage as I’ve been sailing. I think… that personal finance videos have actually been toxic to my psyche but I was ignoring this fact because I wanted to be responsible, I wanted control over my finances. I felt competitive with people, I wanted to save just as much, if not more than them. I wanted to have a higher net worth, I wanted to be more on track. I suppose I am on track, but certainly leaving the workforce for two years is trying. I had also put so much money into grad school so that I wouldn’t graduate laden in debt. I shouldn’t buy any more clothes, really. I just bought a sweater on eBay that’s discontinued and I already have two of them, but they’re amazing quality. But I feel guilty about stuff like that.
There’s a job I am considering applying for, because it was the job that I had turned down two years ago and had regretted it. I really do think things would have turned out differently if I had taken that job offer. I think I would have gotten a full-time offer there, and I would have really enjoyed working there. But alas, I didn’t. But I also do feel like that was God’s plan, because I met my boyfriend there. It was the light at the end of a very dark personal tunnel. I have been thinking about whether I should try to invest like a year into my job and ‘give back’ in a way, before looking for another job. I could get paid more elsewhere, but I also don’t really know what I want out of my life. Like I want to learn, I want to challenge myself, I want to make good money. I think I’ve fallen into step with wanting to advance the career ladder and maybe become a manager someday. But I guess… I’m not impatient on the timeline. But I feel anxious by proxy of comparison.