Categories
Culture Observations

I should have been a writer…

Recently a friend of mine posted a scanned copy of our 6th grade class newsletter. I was tagged in the image and when I looked at it I saw that there was a short story that I had written about a Russian named Vladimir and a really large donut the size of a sheet cake.

Wow, 23 years ago at the age of 10 I was already writing about food! As I read through the story it was obvious that I didn’t have any real creative writing style, but, the story had a beginning, a body, and a conclusion and the grammar was awesome for a 10 year old.

I remember growing up I was always writing poetry, some of it inflammatory, but mostly it was simple rhymes and short stories.

Why didn’t anyone ever tell me back then that I should be a writer when I grow up?

There are a few things in life that come easily to me, the most natural thing I do is dance. It is something I do well without any thought or practice. For me “dancing by ear” is similar to the way people play music by ear. You don’t understand how you do it, you just do.

Later in life I realized I was pretty decent at spatial concepts and understanding balance in design. I’m no artist, but I can sense when something is right.

I think that in our culture we often direct our children down a path that seems to fit something that is accepted by society as great: Doctors, Lawyers, Fireman. We ask “What do you want to be when you grow up?” Instead of asking, “What do you LIKE to do the most?”

Perhaps if we asked the latter question we would better be able to direct our children down a path that they will not only excel in, but they will also find satisfying.

I think our society and culture is wasteful. We spend hours of time and thousands of dollars forcing students to take years of math and science. Instead we should probably have our students get a general grasp of the math and science they need to relate to all parts of society as a whole, however, I have never needed to use Algebra and I’m not sure the 4 years of my life spent in Algebra classes was time well spent. What if instead I was thrust into a creative writing class, dance, art? What if once we got to high school we spent those 4 years finding out what we excelled in and then by the time we got to college we could really intensify those areas of study and then we would be awesome at our careers.Instead we force high school students to endure 2 more years of information that we should have already learned in the previous 12 years of our education and then, once we’ve spent thousands of dollars learning these “basics” we finally get to the meaty subject of what we are going to be doing for the rest of our lives and we spend just 2 years on that. It doesn’t make sense.

Now here I am at 33 years of age and I just now fully understand the areas that I am good at and I’ve spent years and thousands of dollars acquiring skills in an area that I only sort of enjoy and I will never seriously excel in without a lot of work and effort.

So my choice is to either throw away the investment that I have made in my education, or to live a life doing something that I only partly enjoy doing.

I, personally, should have been a writer, or a dancer, or possibly an interior designer. What should you have been?

Categories
I'm Just Sayin

Could Someone Please Press “Play”?

I’m stuck on PAUSE.

For the last two years I’ve noticed a steep decline in my number of close friends. Or perhaps I finally just shed the people that I felt were holding me back or just plain using me? I’m not sure. What I do know is that I use to have a constantly full social calendar and now I rarely go or do anything.

I know part of it is that I’m no longer involved in a church group Bible Study or actively involved in church for that matter. Why? Because friends and relationships take time and they are an investment and I just don’t feel like investing in any new friends lately. I like the ones I already have, I just wish they weren’t so far away.

My closest friends don’t live in state. They are literally spread out across the globe, sprinkled about haphazardly like a spilled box of hot tamales.

When i think of making new friends, close friends near by I’m reminded of so many recent friendships that went no where and in the end I didn’t even want to be friends with those people any more.It’s frightening because with the number of friends that I have pushed away I am starting to realize that the problem is not with them – it’s with me.

What I have done is created this world of comfort for myself where I only have to rely on me. No one can let me down. No one can get close. There is no one to disappoint me.

Perhaps my expectations are too high on my friends and on myself.  I expect so much from friends because I feel like I give a great deal, but maybe I don’t? Maybe it only seems like a great deal because I am selfish?

If you looked at my life now and you looked at it 8 moths ago it would look exactly the same. I’m the same weight. I have not made any progress financially, physically, spiritually, or emotionally. I’m not dying, but I’m not thriving either. My life is literally on pause.

I like to think that I am going somewhere with my life in the near future. I keep waiting for something to happen to change up my circumstances but nothing does. Each day I am tempted to just throw in the towel, put my house up for sale and move away to Hawaii or some remote island and live off the beach like Tom Hanks in Castaway.

It would not be that hard of a transition. I often feel like I am on some island, or worse, floating adrift on some raft that is moving further and further away from society and despite my flailing attempts to grab on to life, I’m sucked away by the undertow of my own failures.

I don’t think I am being melodramatic, nor am I feeling sorry for myself. I’m just stating the facts in a miserable attempt to once again inspire myself to peel myself off of the floor and try once again to start moving forward.

Categories
Relationships Stories

Family Matters

There I was in this room filled with women. Literally hundreds of women who seemed to be thriving on each other’s estrogen the way trees benefit from cross-pollination.

It was Blogher. It was July. It was Chicago.

I was there with a couple of great friends, one of which works for Blogher and I was amazed at all the “real” women and how they came out in droves to share thoughts and ideas about being women and blogging.  To me it was sort of a granola crowd. I mean, being from Dallas and all there is a definite need to dress=to-impress anytime you are out in public and especially if you are going to be around a group of women. But… at Blogher there were very few men around and so there was nothing to cat-fight over. The weapons, push-up bras, concealer, girdles, make-up, eye-brow waxing, manicures, scoop-necked shirts revealing ample cleavage, seemed to be stowed away and I was reminded of my days on campus at Texas Women’s University.

The setting was very similar, lots of women, very few men. This is actually a world I am comfortable in seeing how I grew up with 2 older sisters and a mother who loved to shop more than a father that liked to fish.

The conference was fun and at times ferocious. It seemed that these women were lining up for a variety of different workshops and everyone was handing out business cards like human Pez dispensers. “Hi, My name is Candy, but my blog is CandyCaneRocksYourBrain.com!, here have a business card.”

I always took the cards politely and smiled. Most of these women were older and married, none seemed to be on the prowl for anything other than a vodkatini or a strawberry margarita and some girl talk.

One of the things I noticed was the women who brought their babies with them to the conferences – even late at night. They would wear them strapped to their chests like decorations or badges of honor. The women would run on them and ask questions like, “How old is she?” or “Do you breast feed?”

I posted recently about the woes of single people and our desire to have children, but what I might not have mentioned clearly is that I “get it” when it comes to family and kids. I think all parents have this other connection with parents because they suffered through the nine months of morning sickness, swollen ankles, weight gain, sore nipples,  and mood swings. After that 9 months they had to pass another initiation where they learned what it meant to be humbled by a dirty diaper of a fresh stream of urine sprayed in their face. They laughed and cried and wondered miserably, “Will I ever be good enough?” “Will it ever get better?”

Not only do new parents feel like they are part of some special club, they actually are. They have been granted this special privilege, they have earned those badges of honor and they have every reason to hold their heads up high when others watch their children with delight. Even Jesus said, “let the children come unto me.”

So when I see my friends pull away from things of this world I truly understand why. Suddenly a dinner with friends seems like a frivolous waste of time when you could be spending that time with the most important people in the world to you. There is nothing like family. There is nothing more special than that bond you have between parents and siblings. It is a special world that you should protect and nourish and invest your time and money.

I hope one day to have a family of my own. To watch my wife grow heavy with pregnancy and to see her body change the way only motherhood can change you. I look forward to the challenges that a relationship bring. The challenges and rewards that come with being a husband and a father and I applaud those that have already made this admirable step. My only request is that you never take it for granted. One you have that family cherish it, hold on to it and don’t let your own selfish desires ever stop you from putting that family first.

Categories
Job Updates

Control Those Emotions!

Emotions… they have been a topic on Posted Note so many times that I should just change the name of this site to “Emotional Posted Note” or something else touchy-feely.

This morning I received a certified letter from a client that wanted documented proof of hours spent working for them. Granted, the invoice that I sent them was dated August 3rd and so I haven’t received payment for that work and now they want to hassle me about my hours.

My first impulse is to rain fire and brimstone down on their heads and make threats of how I am going to do everything I can to ruin their business because they are ruining mine – literally.

When you are self-employed you obviously rely on your paychecks to pay your bills, but even more than that, you need money to make money. When you work for a company you just show up and use their resources, not your own, and so you just get a paycheck and call it day. For me, I have to buy software for the computer work I do. Flash, Dreamweaver, Photoshop – these are the tools of my trade for my day job. But then there is my DJ business as well that requires me to purchase music, lights, tablecloths, speakers, microphones – the expenses just keep adding up.

So when I don’t get paid not only can I not pay my bills, but I can’t make more money – or as much money as I could have made.

Also, when you can’t pay your bills on time you get incessant phone calls by automated systems that call your phone twice a day. Citifinancial Auto likes to call you twice a day, every day, from two different numbers asking you constantly, “When are you gonna pay? WHEN? WHEN!!!” and I keep telling them, “Just as soon as my 6,000 arrives from my clients”.

This type of stress makes me very emotional and I have to do everything in my power to control it, to stuff it down and to make it go away. I have to be professional and courteous and instead of getting upset, I can be the one to make phone calls and send emails and write letters to customers who don’t pay me. If it works for Citifiinancial, then it should work for me right?

In the end, I have to wonder what other people do in these situations. If you are self-employed, what steps do you take to get your money from non-paying clients?

Categories
Culture Relationships

What Happened to You?

I think people often forget what it is like to be single. They parade their chubby cute kids in front of us like they just won the baby lotto complete with baby showers, baby laughter and new friends that just so happen to have babies.

“Look at our baby! Isn’t he/she adorable! Watch out for the spit up!” They blurt out these phrases in high-pitched voices complete with gitchy goos and ga gas all the while oblivious to the suffering of us singles.

It’s cute at first. One of your friends gets married, then another, then another. You keep your hopes up, you date, you have some good relationships but they all fizzle out. You congratulate your friends with sincerity, truly happy for their new wedded bliss, but part of you has to wonder, “What about me?”

You push those thoughts out of your head and keep moving on as if you are in some sort of race and if you just keep your eyes focused on the prize then maybe you won’t notice the kids playing in the park next to you or the couple holding hands, or the new mom pushing the pink and blue bedazzled stroller.

At first you are surrounded by lots of other single friends and so the hunt is still sort of fun. You don’t feel so alone because you have singles parties and game nights. You have your freedom and there is always that rush of meeting someone new. But then those circles thin out and the friendships recede like your hairline or begin to sag like your breasts.

You try to stay optimistic only to continue to watch your friends pop babies out left and right. They’re beautiful babies, possibly the most adorable babies that you have ever seen in your life and you love them so much that it’s a little frightening. They aren’t yours and so you can’t get too close because at any moment they could move away, off to some remote place like Tennessee, or worse, Japan and then you are left there with a gaping hole where a warm snuggly toddler should be.

It’s been so long now since your first friends got married that many of them have gotten divorced and already found someone new to marry. You shake your fist to the heavens and scream “Why God, Why?!!!”

Why is it that they can find 2 people to fall in love with when I’m still searching for the first one?

You start to lower your standards and expectations and soon the bar is so low that people don’t even notice it, or you, anymore. You feel like you are fading into the background becoming nothing more than an ephemeral ghost floating through life shrieking silent screams that no one hears but you.

Positivity is one of your strengths and so you join a gym and start working out, you lose some weight, buy some new clothes, start dating again and still nothing. Then finally you meet that someone special that takes your breath away, the one that you know is “The One” and you ask them out or you pray that they ask you out, but they won’t go out with you despite your many attempts to entice them into just a simple dinner.  “Can’t we just be friends?” They say and your heart breaks into a million little pieces and falls to the ground and for the next 6 months you grope around on your knees trying to put it back together.

You’ve tried and failed repeatedly so you go and hang up your hat. You put away your “date” clothes. Shut the door to your closet and that part of your life and you just go on smiling and pressing down the deep ache of desire that pangs you every single time you see a happy couple or hear the laughter of a baby.

The hardest part becomes not merely facing the reality of your plight, but every day filling the gap between the time that you wake up until the time you go to bed. The hours seem longer. The loneliness becomes tangible and it becomes harder and harder to press on and say, “Today is a new day, a new opportunity, perhaps today will be the day I see a change or meet someone new.”

And maybe that day will come… tomorrow?