Last place...
Do you ever get the feeling that you're in last place? Sometimes I feel like I'm playing the Game of Life and I'm driving around in the orange car that no one wanted. Just me and my pink peg driving around and around the board...but never winning. I have a very small cash pile that I lose just as quickly as I win. And even though I went through the "college loop" and the "job loop" I still haven't made any money or gone any further in this game. I certainly haven't added a blue peg in the passenger side...let alone any pegs in the back seat.
There's a whole generation of people...ahem, my generation *cough, cough* maybe just me...that are reaching their thirties having accomplished nothing. We don't have fabulous jobs, fabulous houses, fabulous families, fabulous lives. We're in debt up to our eyeballs. We live paycheck to paycheck. We own nothing. We're all renting. Our credit is shot because having no money we charged everything! We've started out the prime of our lives already behind. We are losing. We are losing at this game. We surround ourselves with people like us so that we can justify our lifestyles. These people are no better off than I am. We can do whatever we want because we don't have kids we need to worry about. I'm going to drop an entire shift's worth of money at the bar tonight so I can get all fucked up and forget that I'm broke and alone.
Not so secretly we envy those around us with nice cars, big tvs, houses, children. They are living the dream and we are bringing up the rear. We're those token single friends you can call when you want a rowdy night out. We'll tell you how great it is to have the freedom to spend an entire day watching Law & Order SVU marathons while we nurse our hangover from partying till 5am the night before. We'll make you second guess getting married so young or having that child and ending up a single parent. We'll throw money down on the bar and buy a round in a carefree manner...but we'll be paying our electricity bill late because we've already figured out that they don't really turn your electricity off for months.
We'll come to your house to watch the big game because we don't pay for superfluous things like cable. Of course we'll all pay out the ass for the internet because we want to make sure we're always connected. Of course we need a venue where we can spew our hatred for society and how it chewed us up and spit us out. And the worst part is...we've had every opportunity that everyone else has had. We're not suffering from mental illness (well...the big ones anyway) or debilitating diseases. But we feel just as useless. Like no matter how hard we try...we'll never catch up.
And the worst part is...no one ever prepared us for this! They told us if we went to school and got a degree that the world would be our oyster! I didn't drink (much) in high school and I certainly didn't do drugs. I spent every semester on the high honor roll and would've joined the National Honor Society if it hadn't been rooted in religion. But I did get the fancy chords! And then I promptly went on to a 4 year school (although I spent 5 years there making up my mind). I graduated with a 3.3 and that was in lieu of having a job and a Vice President's seat in my national sorority! I did it all myself. I worked really hard and I accomplished everything they said that I had to to get the life that I wanted. They said. They told me. They. Who the fuck are they and where are they now?
No one ever told me that a college degree is nothing. No they don't want to tell you that. And in the "Most Educated City in America" it's REALLY nothing. Yeah, Madison is the most educated, you can google that. It doesn't guarantee you shit. You still start out at the bottom of the same shit pile anyone with a high school diploma starts out at. You make the same crappy money and have to put in just as many years at one job as you did to get your degree before you're anything. Why even go to school then? Why borrow thousands of dollars (or pay out of pocket) from the government to get some random degree and then spend the rest of your life paying off your debt waiting tables and slinging beers?
At least if I had been able to join the military, my life would count for something. If I had known what I wanted to do for the rest of my life when I was 18...I'd be golden. Everyone out there succeeding, at my age, knew at 18 what they wanted to be doing at 30...or at least they are very good at lying to themselves about it. I graduated 11 years ago. I am 11 years different from that 18 year old girl I once was. In fact...anyone who knew me in high school and then just got to know me again recently thanks to the phenomenon that is Facebook...probably either deleted me right away, hid my posts, or is absolutely flabbergasted at some of the shit that comes out of my mouth.
I didn't stand for anything when I was a teenager. I didn't care about fading in to the background. I didn't really want to be noticed because I was bullied so bad in junior high. Yeah, yeah...poor Alicia was bullied in middle school and now is ranting about the effects of being bullied. Seriously though...I kept quiet. I didn't speak up. I let everyone else have the lime light. I just accepted that I was mediocre and wanted to blend in with everyone else. While the part of me that is social was there (I joined many groups and played a couple sports) I never needed to be the star player or the soloist. I didn't need to be president of any club. I was okay just being in the club. Just singing in the choir. Just playing a supporting position on the field.
Then I went to college. I got out of the small town mentality and I was FREE! No one knew who I was back home. I got to start all over. I got to build an entirely new person. Someone I wanted to be. I joined a sorority and worked my way up. I became a VP because that was high, but it didn't carry the responsibility of the Pres. I wanted to be important, but I didn't need to be in charge of everyone. The fun I had while I was there is the only thing I have been able to take out of my 5 years spent there. I didn't even think about the rest of my life and what I wanted to do. Meanwhile people were getting their teaching degrees and accounting degrees and business degrees. They were heading places. They needed to out soon so they could work! I was happy just partying and going to events and being this new person I had become.
When I finally had to graduate my entire college life just stopped. The relationship I had worked on for the entire 5 years I was there, ended. And not well. It went up in smoke and I lost my shit for a while. And now school was over. I was like a newborn all over again squinting up at the light wondering what the hell I was going to do next. I fell in to a job because I needed to make money and a friend new of an open position. I never really looked for anything in the psych (that's my degree) realm because after going through the classes and doing the internship, I realized I couldn't be anything with my degree that would make any money. I'd burn out from some poor paying 3rd shift job after a certain amount of time and then be back at square one. So I accepted the insurance job with absolutely no idea of what to do after that.
Grad school was mentioned and encouraged in my classes...but not until I was in the upper level courses. I had missed 3 years (2 of being "undeclared" and 1 of pysch pre-reqs) of "getting to know my professors." You're supposed to get to know them so they can coach you in to grad school. Write you fabulous letters of recommendation. Help you decide what you want to do with your life. My adviser barely spoke English so I never really asked him any questions. I just showed up and had him sign off on my class choices. I did everything wrong for getting in to grad school. I didn't even want to go right away. It seemed like a lot of work and a lot more borrowing of money. Plus all my professors kept saying the best grad schools were somewhere else and I didn't want to move even further away. Definitely didn't want to leave the state. So that's it. I graduated...they booted me out...I was left alone. And here I am.
The reason that I'm single today is a different blog entirely. Suffice it to say that my quintessential life lesson learning relationship happened when I was 21 years old so there's that. Every guy I've met since the one I thought I wanted to spend my life with (isn't that a joke now) has been compared to probably one of the unhealthiest relationships I have ever had in my entire life. I'm textbook here. Father left when I was little. Mom's been married 3 times. A girl forms some trust issues with men doesn't she?
But we all have our hard luck stories. Everyone has their own demons they are wrestling with. Some went to college and found out, like me, that it really doesn't mean jack shit if you don't know what you want to do with your life. Or worse, that you want to do something entirely different than that degree you worked so hard to get and now you have to start all over. Some didn't go to college. Some started and then left. But we all ended up here. In last place. One could only hope that they were lucky enough to meet someone along the way to share their life with. Maybe even someone who would better their life with love. And even better than that, money. Let's not kid ourselves here...love doesn't pay the rent. Falling in love with someone who's got money on the other hand...
So now what do we do? Do we accept the fact that we will always be serving people food and hope to never end up in a serious accident because there's no such thing as affordable health care? Or do we play the right games, kiss the right asses, and move up the ladder in an industry we loathe, but the pay is good so... What's so bad about sacrificing our souls at a job we hate and can't wait to leave at the end of the day, the end of the week? Or do we dare try to go back to school and get a degree in something that might actually make us happy? It's risky borrowing more money and getting another degree. What if you do that job for ten years and realize you don't like that either?
What if you spend the rest of your life working towards a life you think you want and you never find it? I could very easily end up alone. All the important men in my life have walked out on me. I have a very high bar, very high standards (I'm not talking about looks here either) because I don't want to waste my time on a man who's just going to fucking leave me. And I may end up 40 and marrying some joe schmoe just so that I don't end up a spinster and then hoping to conceive a child with the one good egg I have left and praying it doesn't end up with one of those terrible diseases a lot of babies are susceptible to when the mother is older. Damn that's sad. Even typing it I kind of want to delete it. But whatever, it's what I think. Go ahead and argue that if you like, but it happens all the time.
So this is where I am. This is what I have to work with. This is the future I see ahead of me and it scares me to death! I know it's only because I'm turning 30 in 5 months and I'm no where I thought I would be by this time. Unfortunately I am a woman and my biological clock is very very real. Those 11 years I've been out of school are the same 11 years I now have to start a family. I'm in the middle right now. Just as close to high school as I am to drying up an old maid. All I ever wanted to be was a mother. To be honest, I would probably work at a soulless job if I had a happy family to come home to at night and not my fur shedding allergy inducing cat who is unfortunately also getting older.
I'm seriously stuck here. I don't know many people who are where I am in life. I really didn't think I'd be the one left behind. I really didn't think that with my good grades, my smarts, my early successes...that I'd be the one to sit at home alone late at night ranting on a blog that no one reads about turning 30 and being afraid that this is it...this is my life. If you were to go back 11 years in time and tell 18 year old me that I wasn't going to get a dream job or find a nice man by the time I turned 30...I probably would have just hit the next plane to Costa Rica and told college and the rest of my life to go fuck itself. If you would have gone back and told this to 13 year old me who was getting bullied...I'd probably have fought back. I would have punched the shit out of whoever was making fun of me because I wouldn't have cared. I cared entirely too much about where my life was headed, and staying out of trouble, and doing all the right things...and then this is where it is. This is the reality of all those years of hard work. I gave up. I'm not saying I give up...but I sure gave up 5 years ago when I graduated college and learned that real life is nothing like the game.
Which is such a pity because I really do enjoy a good board game. In fact, I usually win.
There's a whole generation of people...ahem, my generation *cough, cough* maybe just me...that are reaching their thirties having accomplished nothing. We don't have fabulous jobs, fabulous houses, fabulous families, fabulous lives. We're in debt up to our eyeballs. We live paycheck to paycheck. We own nothing. We're all renting. Our credit is shot because having no money we charged everything! We've started out the prime of our lives already behind. We are losing. We are losing at this game. We surround ourselves with people like us so that we can justify our lifestyles. These people are no better off than I am. We can do whatever we want because we don't have kids we need to worry about. I'm going to drop an entire shift's worth of money at the bar tonight so I can get all fucked up and forget that I'm broke and alone.
Not so secretly we envy those around us with nice cars, big tvs, houses, children. They are living the dream and we are bringing up the rear. We're those token single friends you can call when you want a rowdy night out. We'll tell you how great it is to have the freedom to spend an entire day watching Law & Order SVU marathons while we nurse our hangover from partying till 5am the night before. We'll make you second guess getting married so young or having that child and ending up a single parent. We'll throw money down on the bar and buy a round in a carefree manner...but we'll be paying our electricity bill late because we've already figured out that they don't really turn your electricity off for months.
We'll come to your house to watch the big game because we don't pay for superfluous things like cable. Of course we'll all pay out the ass for the internet because we want to make sure we're always connected. Of course we need a venue where we can spew our hatred for society and how it chewed us up and spit us out. And the worst part is...we've had every opportunity that everyone else has had. We're not suffering from mental illness (well...the big ones anyway) or debilitating diseases. But we feel just as useless. Like no matter how hard we try...we'll never catch up.
And the worst part is...no one ever prepared us for this! They told us if we went to school and got a degree that the world would be our oyster! I didn't drink (much) in high school and I certainly didn't do drugs. I spent every semester on the high honor roll and would've joined the National Honor Society if it hadn't been rooted in religion. But I did get the fancy chords! And then I promptly went on to a 4 year school (although I spent 5 years there making up my mind). I graduated with a 3.3 and that was in lieu of having a job and a Vice President's seat in my national sorority! I did it all myself. I worked really hard and I accomplished everything they said that I had to to get the life that I wanted. They said. They told me. They. Who the fuck are they and where are they now?
No one ever told me that a college degree is nothing. No they don't want to tell you that. And in the "Most Educated City in America" it's REALLY nothing. Yeah, Madison is the most educated, you can google that. It doesn't guarantee you shit. You still start out at the bottom of the same shit pile anyone with a high school diploma starts out at. You make the same crappy money and have to put in just as many years at one job as you did to get your degree before you're anything. Why even go to school then? Why borrow thousands of dollars (or pay out of pocket) from the government to get some random degree and then spend the rest of your life paying off your debt waiting tables and slinging beers?
At least if I had been able to join the military, my life would count for something. If I had known what I wanted to do for the rest of my life when I was 18...I'd be golden. Everyone out there succeeding, at my age, knew at 18 what they wanted to be doing at 30...or at least they are very good at lying to themselves about it. I graduated 11 years ago. I am 11 years different from that 18 year old girl I once was. In fact...anyone who knew me in high school and then just got to know me again recently thanks to the phenomenon that is Facebook...probably either deleted me right away, hid my posts, or is absolutely flabbergasted at some of the shit that comes out of my mouth.
I didn't stand for anything when I was a teenager. I didn't care about fading in to the background. I didn't really want to be noticed because I was bullied so bad in junior high. Yeah, yeah...poor Alicia was bullied in middle school and now is ranting about the effects of being bullied. Seriously though...I kept quiet. I didn't speak up. I let everyone else have the lime light. I just accepted that I was mediocre and wanted to blend in with everyone else. While the part of me that is social was there (I joined many groups and played a couple sports) I never needed to be the star player or the soloist. I didn't need to be president of any club. I was okay just being in the club. Just singing in the choir. Just playing a supporting position on the field.
Then I went to college. I got out of the small town mentality and I was FREE! No one knew who I was back home. I got to start all over. I got to build an entirely new person. Someone I wanted to be. I joined a sorority and worked my way up. I became a VP because that was high, but it didn't carry the responsibility of the Pres. I wanted to be important, but I didn't need to be in charge of everyone. The fun I had while I was there is the only thing I have been able to take out of my 5 years spent there. I didn't even think about the rest of my life and what I wanted to do. Meanwhile people were getting their teaching degrees and accounting degrees and business degrees. They were heading places. They needed to out soon so they could work! I was happy just partying and going to events and being this new person I had become.
When I finally had to graduate my entire college life just stopped. The relationship I had worked on for the entire 5 years I was there, ended. And not well. It went up in smoke and I lost my shit for a while. And now school was over. I was like a newborn all over again squinting up at the light wondering what the hell I was going to do next. I fell in to a job because I needed to make money and a friend new of an open position. I never really looked for anything in the psych (that's my degree) realm because after going through the classes and doing the internship, I realized I couldn't be anything with my degree that would make any money. I'd burn out from some poor paying 3rd shift job after a certain amount of time and then be back at square one. So I accepted the insurance job with absolutely no idea of what to do after that.
Grad school was mentioned and encouraged in my classes...but not until I was in the upper level courses. I had missed 3 years (2 of being "undeclared" and 1 of pysch pre-reqs) of "getting to know my professors." You're supposed to get to know them so they can coach you in to grad school. Write you fabulous letters of recommendation. Help you decide what you want to do with your life. My adviser barely spoke English so I never really asked him any questions. I just showed up and had him sign off on my class choices. I did everything wrong for getting in to grad school. I didn't even want to go right away. It seemed like a lot of work and a lot more borrowing of money. Plus all my professors kept saying the best grad schools were somewhere else and I didn't want to move even further away. Definitely didn't want to leave the state. So that's it. I graduated...they booted me out...I was left alone. And here I am.
The reason that I'm single today is a different blog entirely. Suffice it to say that my quintessential life lesson learning relationship happened when I was 21 years old so there's that. Every guy I've met since the one I thought I wanted to spend my life with (isn't that a joke now) has been compared to probably one of the unhealthiest relationships I have ever had in my entire life. I'm textbook here. Father left when I was little. Mom's been married 3 times. A girl forms some trust issues with men doesn't she?
But we all have our hard luck stories. Everyone has their own demons they are wrestling with. Some went to college and found out, like me, that it really doesn't mean jack shit if you don't know what you want to do with your life. Or worse, that you want to do something entirely different than that degree you worked so hard to get and now you have to start all over. Some didn't go to college. Some started and then left. But we all ended up here. In last place. One could only hope that they were lucky enough to meet someone along the way to share their life with. Maybe even someone who would better their life with love. And even better than that, money. Let's not kid ourselves here...love doesn't pay the rent. Falling in love with someone who's got money on the other hand...
So now what do we do? Do we accept the fact that we will always be serving people food and hope to never end up in a serious accident because there's no such thing as affordable health care? Or do we play the right games, kiss the right asses, and move up the ladder in an industry we loathe, but the pay is good so... What's so bad about sacrificing our souls at a job we hate and can't wait to leave at the end of the day, the end of the week? Or do we dare try to go back to school and get a degree in something that might actually make us happy? It's risky borrowing more money and getting another degree. What if you do that job for ten years and realize you don't like that either?
What if you spend the rest of your life working towards a life you think you want and you never find it? I could very easily end up alone. All the important men in my life have walked out on me. I have a very high bar, very high standards (I'm not talking about looks here either) because I don't want to waste my time on a man who's just going to fucking leave me. And I may end up 40 and marrying some joe schmoe just so that I don't end up a spinster and then hoping to conceive a child with the one good egg I have left and praying it doesn't end up with one of those terrible diseases a lot of babies are susceptible to when the mother is older. Damn that's sad. Even typing it I kind of want to delete it. But whatever, it's what I think. Go ahead and argue that if you like, but it happens all the time.
So this is where I am. This is what I have to work with. This is the future I see ahead of me and it scares me to death! I know it's only because I'm turning 30 in 5 months and I'm no where I thought I would be by this time. Unfortunately I am a woman and my biological clock is very very real. Those 11 years I've been out of school are the same 11 years I now have to start a family. I'm in the middle right now. Just as close to high school as I am to drying up an old maid. All I ever wanted to be was a mother. To be honest, I would probably work at a soulless job if I had a happy family to come home to at night and not my fur shedding allergy inducing cat who is unfortunately also getting older.
I'm seriously stuck here. I don't know many people who are where I am in life. I really didn't think I'd be the one left behind. I really didn't think that with my good grades, my smarts, my early successes...that I'd be the one to sit at home alone late at night ranting on a blog that no one reads about turning 30 and being afraid that this is it...this is my life. If you were to go back 11 years in time and tell 18 year old me that I wasn't going to get a dream job or find a nice man by the time I turned 30...I probably would have just hit the next plane to Costa Rica and told college and the rest of my life to go fuck itself. If you would have gone back and told this to 13 year old me who was getting bullied...I'd probably have fought back. I would have punched the shit out of whoever was making fun of me because I wouldn't have cared. I cared entirely too much about where my life was headed, and staying out of trouble, and doing all the right things...and then this is where it is. This is the reality of all those years of hard work. I gave up. I'm not saying I give up...but I sure gave up 5 years ago when I graduated college and learned that real life is nothing like the game.
Which is such a pity because I really do enjoy a good board game. In fact, I usually win.
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