Jackadilloprincess.com

Today was the second day at my new/old job, and the second day of being in that new-job limbo state. I’m ready to go out and get started doing interviews for articles and junk, but nobody’s ready to be interviewed yet. It doesn’t help that I’ve been extremely jittery while trying to sit still at my desk because I’m all hopped up on Diet Coke and hypothermia. (I’d forgotten how high they keep the air conditioning turned up there.)

Oh, I guess I should explain why I’m calling it my new/old job. It’s a new job, in that I just started there yesterday. It’s an old job in that it’s at the same place I worked two years ago, before I got laid off, doing much the same work.

It’s weird going back into an office environment after two years of hanging out at home in crusty jeans and zombie t-shirts. Before I started, I bought a bunch of new clothes in an effort to remember how to make myself presentable, and I’ve spent the last two days dressed in grown-up outfits. But either I totally forgot this, or they’ve changed how grown-up clothes work in the past two years, because I learned today that I don’t know how to work my pants.

I sort of thought pants were pants were pants, but then I got to work today and really, really needed to pee, but when I got to the bathroom I found that I couldn’t unbutton my pants. Seriously. I was trapped in my nice, new pants.

They were lovely pants, really, but I was pretty sure no one would notice how nice they were if they were covered in a giant pee stain. It took a good three minutes of struggling, contemplating the discreet use of scissors, and wondering whether I could go all day without peeing (remember the Diet Coke mentioned above) before I finally managed to get them unbuttoned. But every single time I went to the bathroom – which I do a lot, because, you know, Diet Coke addiction – I had the same scare. Because apparently I do not learn very quickly.

I was sooooo cold yesterday that I thought ahead and brought a hoodie to wear over my nice, non-warm clothes today. Unfortunately I forgot to check for stray pieces of candy stuck to the front. And I continued to forget to check for several hours after I put it on today.

I attended my first team meeting today, too, during which my new boss talked about strategies and new business models and some deep philosophical stuff about the direction the industry is headed. The whole time, I was mostly just hoping this wasn’t the sort of meeting where I might be randomly called on to contribute to the conversation, because all I could think to say was, “Um, I don’t have a trash can at my desk? Could I have one? I don’t have a place to throw my Diet Coke cans.” At which point everyone would glare at me angrily because everyone knows Diet Coke cans go in the recycle bin in the break room.

So anyway, the new job is going all right, but I won’t really have a feel for it until things get moving at the end of this week and the start of next week. I hope it’s at least moderately fun.

I’m sure things will be great once I get that trash can situation sorted out.

That right there is a crappy picture of part of my desk.

Why, you may be wondering, do I feel the need to post a crappy picture of part of my desk?

Well, it’s because of the piece of paper tacked to the wall, the one reading “June 14 2011.”  That date is one year from next Monday. Monday is the day after we return from our mini road trip to Estes Park, and the day we’re going to start working on improving our daily lives.  It’s also the first day of the year I’m giving myself to write a book.

Because, you guys, I finally have a book idea.  (I’m sure you’re thinking, Um, aren’t you a writer?  Don’t you have book ideas all the time? And the answer is no, no I don’t.)  I’m not going to tell you what my book idea is, but don’t feel bad, because I won’t even tell Rob yet.  Even though I’m narcissistic enough to keep this blog, I’m awfully shy.  Any criticism would almost definitely kill this tiny seedling of an idea, right when it needs encouragement and care to grow.

The only reason I’m even saying this is so other people can keep me honest and motivated.  A year from now, if you ask me about my book and I give you some crap excuse about why I couldn’t write it after all, please punch me in the face.

Um, hi.  So, I haven’t been talking much lately, if you hadn’t noticed.

I could lie and say that I’ve been really busy, but actually I’ve been playing “Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance” and watching old episodes of “Dead Like Me.”

I think I haven’t been talking because I only have one thing to say and I didn’t feel like saying it yet, because I didn’t care to explain myself to the whole internet and/or the five or so people who read this blog.  But it’s almost time to write Kaylee another letter, and I can’t do that until I’ve done this, because this big rambling thought is blocking my way to writing anything else.  So here goes.

I should have been nicer to my mom when I was growing up.  I think just about everyone can say that, because you never realize what your parents had to deal with until you’re an adult dealing with the same things.

As a teenager, I could not fathom how my mother chose the life that she chose.  Married at 17 and a mother at 19, my mom worked a few jobs when my brother and I were young, but by the time we’d moved to Colorado, she opted to stay home and take care of us instead.  She didn’t work again until a few years ago, when my brother and I were off building families of our own.

I couldn’t figure this out.  Why, in this day and age, would a woman choose not to pursue a career?  Why would she allow herself to be completely supported by her husband?  Didn’t she want to be independent?  Didn’t she want to embrace the women’s lib movement and be her own person?

Throughout high school and college, I worked to make sure I would not wind up on the same path as my mom.  I got my degree in a practical enough (I thought) field and supported myself, for the most part, from the age of 19.  When I did get married, it was with the full expectation that I’d continue sharing the burden of bringing home the bacon cheeseburgers.  And then when we had Kaylee, I planned to “have it all”: a husband, a kid, a fulfilling career, etc.

When I realized that my fulfilling career was (1) no longer fulfilling and (2) in a downward-spiraling industry, I came up with a backup plan.  I wanted something rewarding and decently paying, and I settled on nursing.  I have a long list of reasons for that decision, which I won’t go into here.  I took some classes to get the ball rolling, and I made plans for applying to nursing school this year, never really questioning whether I’d be accepted.  Of course they’d accept me.  Why wouldn’t they?

And then I lost my job.

I really, truly always thought I needed it.  Not just for the money, although that’s no small factor, but also for sanity.  I need a purpose, I thought, and I cannot get that if I’m spending all my time at home.

Three weeks ago, I had an epiphany: I do not give a rat’s ass about my career arc.  Fuck career ambition.

I do not want to go to nursing school –  at least not right now – and I do not want to get another job.  I LIKE staying home with my daughter.  I like seeing her learn new words and figure out how to express her ideas.  I like taking her to the park, even if it means a screaming session when it’s time to leave.  I like spending time with her every day, and the thought of giving that up makes my eyes tear up and my heart race.  I do not want to hand off the privilege of watching her grow to a daycare staff that turns over every three months.

I dropped the only class I was taking this semester, and decided not to apply for nursing school this year.  I made the decision during a particularly vicious week in which my professor had given us seven assignments to complete.  I felt relieved, and kind of ashamed.

I feel like my younger self is judging me, and harshly.  It is 2009, and here I am returning to the ‘50s, taking on the role of the little wifey, raising the kids and doing the laundry with a sunny smile – minus the dress and the high heels.  I’m supposed to be having it all, and here I am choosing to focus on one shiny spot in my life and jettison the rest.  Instead of being a woman who can drop her kids off at school in the morning, hold business meetings all day, come home and cook a nutritious dinner and then relax on the couch with my beautiful family while checking work e-mail on my iPhone during commercials, I’m choosing to just be a mom.  (I do love my iPhone, though.)

The thing is, even though the job was the thing that was supposed to make me feel like a liberated, independent woman, it mostly made me feel trapped and unhappy.  While I was there, I felt I needed to escape, and becoming a nurse was my escape plan.  But now I’ve escaped, and my plan doesn’t seem so urgent anymore.  While I may still choose to go down that road in the future, I don’t feel it’s necessary now.

I know I’m lucky.  Rob and I could have been in a situation that required me to find another job right away.  But we’re doing ok.  We have a lot less wiggle room in our budget now, but we’re going to get by.  And I’m learning to accept that my financial contribution to the family will be minimal.  (But as I’ve also reminded myself repeatedly, I am making a financial contribution simply by taking care of Kaylee every day instead of having someone else do it.  That saves us almost $800 a month.)  I also have a little bit of money coming in from some freelance projects, but that won’t be buying us anything fancy.

I worry that the feminists among you will judge me for setting aside my own ambitions to be a housewife.  I worry that my daughter, when she’s a teenager, will look at me and disapprove of my decisions.  (That’s pretty much guaranteed, no matter what I do, probably.)  I worry … well, I just worry.

But as much as I worry, I KNOW this is the right thing for us.  When I was working all day and then rushing to pick up Kaylee at daycare, then spending two hours with her before putting her to bed, I was unhappy about as often as I was happy.  Crying on Rob’s shoulder was a regular occurrence.  And now, even though I sometimes get bored watching giraffe videos on YouTube, and even though my kid sometimes makes me a little bit crazy, I never sit on the couch at the end of a long day and try to work out an escape plan.  I never cry on Rob’s shoulder about how stressed I am (especially now that I’ve dropped that class), and as a family we’re all generally in a better mood.

That’s all I really had to say.

So now that that’s out of the way, maybe I can get back to posting regularly again.

Way back on Layoff Day, I mentioned that I went to a meeting on the accelerated nursing program and it scared the hell out of me. Then I never bothered to elaborate. I’ll do that now.

The meeting included a panel of current students, and they were brutally honest about what the program entails. Among the things they said:

1. You will eat, sleep and breathe this program. When you’re not in class, you’re studying or you’re asleep.

2. Don’t expect to see your family. Ever. If you have kids, tell ‘em they’ll see Mommy in 16 months.

3. Your finances will suffer greatly. Oh, and you won’t get much help with that because you’re probably approaching the limit in the amount of student loans you’re allowed to receive.

4. The classes are both super hard and incredibly short. That’s why they call it an accelerated program.

When I left that meeting, I sat in my car and cried. Then I went home and called Rob, who came home from work to talk me down. I wasn’t crying because the classes would be hard or because money would be tight. I knew those things already. I was crying because I didn’t know if I could stand to take a 16-month break from my life to go to school. I’d pretty much miss the entire third year of Kaylee’s life. On the one hand that would mean I wouldn’t have to deal with the Terrible Twos, but on the other, I’d be missing a lot of good stuff too.

So that day, Rob and I sat there and talked it out, and we decided that 16 months was an acceptable sacrifice.

Over the past couple of weeks, though, I noticed that I wasn’t thinking of nursing school with excitement anymore, but with dread. I’d even started thinking that I’d go ahead and apply, but I really hoped I wouldn’t get in so I’d have a good reason to back out.

A smarter person would have realized it was time to make a new plan, but I’m not always that smart.

But finally, last night, I brought it up to Rob. “You know that life plan we had? The one that we’ve been working on for the past year? Yeah, I changed my mind.”

I had kind of dreaded having that conversation with Rob, because I thought he’d be disappointed in me for not sticking with my original idea, or that he’d think I just wanted to avoid turning off the tv and leaving the house once in a while.

Sometimes I forget that I married one of the good guys. As I said, I’m not always very smart.

Rather than ridiculing me and making me cry, Rob pretty much supported everything I said, and we agreed that I’d skip applying for the acclerated program and instead go to regular ol’ nursing school.

And this morning the most amazing thing happened: I woke up feeling lighter, less weighed down by the thought of the stressful future ahead.

And now it’s time to drink. Happy New Year, everybody.

My day included the following:

• A layoff
• A meeting about nursing school that scared the bejesus out of me
• A chicken sandwich
• Three instances of getting teary-eyed but not actually crying
• One minor freak-out with actual crying
• A little bit of soul searching
• 1.2 margaritas
• 1 sip of peppermint schnapps
• One new cousin-in-law (Welcome, Samuel Christopher)

I think it’s time for a nap.

I’ve been a little flippant about the fact that I’m losing my job.  I am, truly, looking forward to the change, because I do want to spend more time with my daughter and I am getting tired of working in an industry that is sinking so quickly.

And so, when I’ve talked about it to friends and family, I’ve been mostly making light of the situation.  “I’m getting laid off — but it’s okay!  I’m going to be a nurse!”  “Thank God I’m getting out of there!  Yay!”  “I get to play with my kid all day!  Woohoo!”

I thought that summed up how I felt.

I drove up into the hills on the west side of town today, to meet with a realtor and write about a home she has listed for sale.  It will be the last home I write about for my job, and in fact the last article I will write at all.  The home was incredible, and one of the best ones I’ve been to in my real estate wanderings.  I hadn’t intended to say this to the realtor, but all of a sudden, it just came out of my mouth: “This is the last house I’ll be writing about.”

“Oh, are you moving on, then?” she asked.

At that point, I thought I should lie.  It’s probably not good etiquette to tell random members of the community that your company is getting ready for another round of layoffs.  But then I realized that my lower lip had started to quiver, and my lie died in my throat.  My face always gives me away when I try to tell a lie; it’s just not worth the effort.  She sympathized and said, “Nursing is a good career, with lots of job security. My husband has been in the hospital since July, and there’s always a need for good nurses.”  And there we were, two sad people standing in a hallway.

As I drove away from the house, my eyes welled up, which surprised me.  I wasn’t expecting to get so upset.  I thought I would be happier about this.  It’s what I wanted.  But still.

I guess it’s finally hitting home, now that I’m explaining the situation to people who have only ever known me as a writer for my newspaper.  I’ve been here for six and a half years, and it’s part of my identity.  Hello, my name is Heather, and I write for a newspaper.  And now that’s going away.  Now it’ll be “I’m a stay-at-home mom,” “I’m a housewife,” and eventually “I’m a nurse.”  It’s like I’m taking a third of my life, cutting it out, and just hoping that the next puzzle piece I’m handed fits in the right way.

The home I visited today sits on a winding mountain road, and before I left the area I stopped at a scenic overlook, took in the city views, and cried.  I had thought this would be a time for celebration, but it turns out it’s a time for mourning, too.

Goodbye, writing career.  In a little over two weeks, I’ll be relaxing on my couch with a glass of wine and shedding a few (hundred) tears for your passing.

(But not for long, because I’ll also be studying for an Anatomy & Physiology final.  Life goes on, I guess.)

Several months ago, my friend Lisa sent me a really long e-mail about why I should read this book:

I somehow missed the e-mail and then dug it up many, many weeks after she’d sent it, and then I bought the book this summer.  I started reading it right before school started in August, which means I’m still reading it now.

I may or may not have played hooky from work today, and I while I was lying on my deathbed (really, I was DYING, and not having new tires put on my car) I had intended to read the next chapter of my Anatomy & Physiology book.  Because when you take the day off of work, there’s nothing you’d rather do than study, right?

Instead, I decided that my A&P book was too cumbersome to carry around an auto repair store – um, I meant to say hospital – and I ended up bringing “The Book Thief” with me instead.  And holy crap, I can’t stop reading the damn thing.

So Lisa, when I fail to become a nurse, it is on your head.

I was about halfway through a glass of chardonnay last night when I made my declaration about participating in NoBloPoMo.  That could explain why I made such an ill-advised decision.  I hadn’t realized that half a glass of wine could enough to impair my judgment, but I also hadn’t realized that the new wine glasses we bought hold enough wine to kill a baby elephant.

So I woke up this morning with a  terrible headache caused by ONE glass of wine.  I find this very disappointing, as it ruins my goal of one day becoming an alcoholic housewife a la Kirsten Cohen.  Unless, of course, I also become addicted to painkillers.  One can dream.

I received two instructions from Rob this afternoon, designed to help me survive the work day in relative peace:

1.  Do not read CNN’s Political Ticker.
2.  Do not Google “eyelid cancer.”

Both of these things have the potential to cause me lots of mental turmoil, so my husband is a wise man.  But alas, I can’t help myself.

When I took a week-long vacation in March, I forbade myself from reading about politics, because I was (and still am) completely obsessed with the Democratic primaries.  The CNN Political Ticker is a place where you can read about the minutiae of the candidates’ days.  How else would I know that Obama once reacted negatively to a reporter who interrupted his waffle breakfast?  How else would I know about every single memo the Clinton campaign e-mails to reporters?  Or the time Obama played a board game with some reporters on the campaign trail?  These things are of critical importance!

The problem, of course, is that there are contentious issues in the race, such as whether to seat certain delegates, whether any of the candidates are “un-American,” and whether McCain hates veterans.  And so one can’t help but get a little worked up.

So, in the spirit of relaxation, I stayed away from the news while I was on vacation.  But here I am, two months later, typing up long rants about Florida and Michigan and e-mailing them off to Rob, who must endure these things because we’re married.

Yesterday may have provided a refreshing change of  pace, however, when I wrote to Rob to let him know that I probably have eyelid cancer.

I went to the doctor yesterday to have her look at a lump in my eyelid that’s been there for months.  Far from the “Oh, it’s nothing” that I was hoping for, I got this: “You need to see an ophthalmologist.  I don’t know what it is.”  She theorized that the eye doctor may decide to cut this growth out of my face.

You can imagine my excitement.

I should point out that my doctor did not ever utter the word “cancer.”  She said it was probably a cyst, so when I got back to work, I promptly typed “eyelid cyst” into Google and then diagnosed myself.  There are hundreds of pages that offer a benign, not-at-all-frightening suggestion for why I might have a lump in my eyelid, and one that suggested cancer and disfigurement.  So I, of course, focused on that one.  To hell with optimism!  I’d rather convince myself that I’m going to die!  I want to imagine elaborate scenarios in which my malignant eyelid tumor burrows its way into my brain!  And after I’m done with that, I’ll read blog commentary about politics and remind myself why I hate other people so much!

So, um, is it ok for nurses to be hypochondriacs and despise the general public?

I’m going to be the best nurse EVER.

About once a day, I realize that I’ve suddenly become really tense and unhappy, and the best way to cure it would be to sit down and write something. Maybe about my job, maybe about bunnies — whatever, it doesn’t matter. My fingers are tingling because they want to type, and my brain is tingling because it wants to think up some words so my fingers have something to do.

Here’s the thing: I can’t say everything I want to say. I could talk about my job, but I hear that’s a bad thing to do on the Internets. I could talk about Kaylee, but you can read about her over here. I could talk about my dogs, but they mostly just lie around the house and occasionally puke on the carpet. So, what does that leave?

Do you want to hear about my encounter with not one, but two psychics last week?

All right, let’s talk about that.

On Thursday, I agreed to go to a party for work, and the place was dotted with booths representing local businesses and restaurants. There were other ways to keep yourself entertained, like feeding coconut to the cutest porcupine in the history of the world, or getting a tarot-card reading from one of two hipster psychics.

My friend/boss, Lisa, and I each picked a psychic and had our fortunes read. I wanted to know about the fate of my career, because as it happens, I’ve decided to head in a new direction. (Oh hey, have I mentioned that I’ve decided to become a nurse? No? Well, guess what, y’all? I’ve decided to become a nurse.)

The woman asked me to shuffle a deck of tarot cards while thinking about my topic of interest. I did, and then she set about telling me things that made me unhappy and didn’t so much relate to the career change thing. She suggested that some people in my life weren’t living up to their responsibilities, and that I was about to enter a new stage of spirituality and wouldn’t be followed there by the people I care about.

So yay.

I ignored that reading and drank a glass of wine.

Later, Lisa and I decided to trade psychics and try again. This time, my reading was done by a slightly crotchety man in yellow hippie sunglasses who asked me a lot of questions before actually starting the reading. Then he held my hand and closed his eyes while soaking in my aura … or something. His questioning led me to reveal the following:

1. I am changing careers …
2. … to become a nurse …
3. … preferably in labor and delivery.
4. I have a daughter.
5. She is one year old.

He went on to tell me that I’m full of compassion, that my daughter is responsible for my decision to go into nursing, and that both she and my new career will open up new worlds for me.

Now, if someone came up to me and told me that list of things about themselves, I would probably conclude pretty much everything this man told me, and then call myself a psychic. I wouldn’t even need the yellow sunglasses.

Despite that, his reading put me in a much better mood and made me feel all warm and fuzzy about the idea of becoming a nurse. (He insisted this is the best thing I could do for myself, then nodded knowingly and handed me his business card.) But it’s possible the warmth and fuzziness came from the wine.

Even though the logical part of my brain — that’s about 94% of it, give or take — believes that the reader was just saying the things that he knew I’d want to hear, the other 6% felt quietly validated.

Because here’s a secret, Internet: I’m terrified of what I’m about to do. This nursing thing? What if it’s a colossal mistake? What if I hate it? What if I suck at it? What if it does change my life, but in a terrible way? What if I regret this?

I’ve started taking a few classes to gear up for actual nursing school, and I enjoyed the hell out of my anatomy and physiology class even though it attempted to kick my ass. I have a lot of solid reasons for believing that becoming a nurse is the right thing for me to do, and maybe I’ll spell those out for you sometime. This new life of mine will be good. I hope.

So today I choose to believe something that one psychic told me, and believe that another psychic is full of crap.

Maybe that doesn’t make much sense, but it’s what I’m going to do.