I am here inside an empty café, listening to bossa while letting my thoughts run wild. It’s been ages since I last tried to even phrase the ‘nothingness’ that sometimes engulfs me (sometimes being the operative word). In most days, I would welcome this blank state. But since my birthday is coming a-knocking, I think I deserve some good old fashioned wallowing.
In about a month’s time, I will be turning 25. This could be the potential quarter life crisis (QLC)---that is, if one is expected to live until 100 years old. I, on the other hand, do not expect to live until 50. With the nature of my job, I may even be optimistic. So is this my midlife crisis, then?
Let me just get my thoughts out. I am a 24 year old sales manager (fine, assistant manager assisting not a manager but an assistant vice president) in a medium sized company. What you can call a medium fish in a medium pond (now, that actually sounds bleaker than what I had intended). Let me rephrase that, I am the youngest member of the Management team and if I had not been used to self- deprecating, I would be proud of myself. Despite my stellar educational background (I got into good schools, but my grades were not stellar), I literally settled for the first company who would hire me. I started out at the lowest of lows, doing a Ryan- Pam combo (you have to know the series The Office to get me), then moving to a sales position, then a year and a half later, managing a team. Four years into this big bad corporate world, I would say that it’s been great so far. Not perfect and not without my share of horror stories but interesting, nonetheless. I met the love of my life in the office and have travelled to different places for free. So far, so good.
What am I rambling about, you would ask? Nothing, really. Except the fact that I have been so wrapped up in my responsibilities work-wise, that I fail to hmmm, stop and smell the roses? Too cliché. A better choice of words would be, I’m so caught up in my work that I forget to stop and pick my scabs (figuratively).To explain, I used to love bleeding---- it gets me really juiced up to write good stories. I used to magnify even the minutest of problems just so I can write about it. In hindsight, I could write stories about my pantyhose running or my hair catching bees like I was vying for a Pulitzer prize. For me, being manic-depressive is healthy. Wait, I would not go as far as saying that I need drama 24/7, though a little of the unexpected would not hurt, either. I guess what I’m trying to say is that I miss writing. I miss it when friends drop a comment on my blog telling me how funny I am, or how they totally agree with how I dissected the meaning of my current favorite song. Things like that may be trivial to people, but for the people concerned, these things forge a sense of affinity and belongingness.
At 24, I’m currently in my ‘tween’ years, no longer young but not too old. I would like to think that I am still in that age bracket where I could still do the things that I want and still be able to turn things around when they go bad (there’s a Dashboard song that captures this idea, but I forgot what song that is.) Bottom line is, I want to explore this ‘generation’ while I still have the chutzpah to do it.
Whoops. Time is up.
7.16.09 – 9:44pm Rocci’s
