Blech

me- today

Blech. 

It is my new favorite word.  It is the one that Charlie Brown and the Peanuts gang used to use all the time.  It so succintly expresses how I feel right about now.

Work is...challenging.  Difficult.  Depressing. 

I am having thoughts that I hoped I wouldn't have to have again.  About how money really can't be everything, and how it isn't making me happy in my job.  About what else I would like to do when I grow up. About how I think I might be wasting my life, doing something I don't like and don't want to be doing.

Don't get me wrong, the work is fine.  I just don't really enjoy it- it doesn't enhance my joy.  I am not following my bliss.

Now, my parents and their generation would likely say "Suck it up, buttercup.  You have a bills and a family to take care of.  Bliss- schmiss, what you need is coin."  And they are 100% right. 

But I can't help thinking that there should be something more.  Does everyone feel this way?  Do we all settle?  How do we live with that?  How do I get through my days, when I am not happy?  How do I do something that takes me away from what makes me happiest- my home, my family, my dog, my photos- my life!- when that thing that takes me away, makes me so very sad?

I am having trouble reconciling this in my mind.  Geoff is worried, I know.  He is being super supportive, telling me things will get better, telling me that I have been here before and I always make it through and end up happy in the end.  And he is right.  I do. 

I think I am just getting tired of having to do it over and over again.

People I have talked to say that this is just how it is now- the corporate world is constant change and upheaval, constantly having to prove yourself to everyone around, having to be better than everyone else, and making sure everyone knows it.  You have to network, make contacts, keep your face and your name in everyone's mind.  That's what you have to do, to get ahead.

But I don't really want to get ahead.  I was happy right where I was. 
I already have friends, I don't need more, especially if it is just to have contacts.
I don't want to have to "business-speak" and be politically correct all the time.  I want to swear and laugh at inappropriate times.

*sigh*

I sound like a whiner, even to myself.  Other people have it so much worse.  My mother works a job she hates, and has done so for 40 years.  She did it, because she had to.  She found a way to make it work for her.  She got through it, and continues to get through it every time she walks into that place. 

I should just shut up and do the same.

But ...
But...
But....

I keep thinking there is something else out there.  Something waiting for me.  Writing this blog has reminded me how much I used to love to write.  Doing the charity work has introduced a whole new world of organzing and giving back to the world that I didn't know before.  The photos have given me a creative outlet that I needed for so long. 

But none of that will pay my bills.  At least not now.  Do I gamble everything on a chance?  Or should this buttercup just suck it up?

I know what I will do.  I don't even know why I am asking.  I will suck it up.  I will wake up every morning, and sigh, and stretch.  I will smile for my kids.  I will say hi to everyone I meet.  I will talk, and work, and negotiate.  I will play my games, and I will get played.  I will come home and try to forget the day and concentrate on what is happening now, in front of me. 

Tomorrow, I will get up and go to work.
Blech.

Rosie N. Grey
The N stands for "not enough for me".