Upon the Completion of My MBA

I've been looking forward to this for months -- so imagine my surprise when I could not contain my tears.

I had just finished my final (FINAL) exam, the project was already turned in, and as I packed up my laptop (slipped into my soon-to-die Hello kitty case), I was feeling odd. I thought I would feel immense relief and joy at my accomplishments over the past two years; hard work pays off. Instead my feelings are so mixed, I find myself sitting here -- thirty minutes later -- still crying.

What the fuck is wrong with me?

Oh wait, I know.

1. I am now a grown up. Ahead of me I have endless possibilities. I suppose my education has been a stop gap for the inevitable risks and fears the future holds, as well as a stepping stone into a brighter future. Learning is so solid, so structured. Something I love. I can feel the pressure of "success" and finding a high paying job weighing down on me so heavily, it's a wonder I haven't had a panic attack. Now that I have an MBA, I have no excuses to not succeed, therefore, I MUST succeed or I'll be a failure.
2. I will miss all my classmates. I had a team of four guys that were my saving grace. They helped me, or carried me, through a couple of my classes. Without them, I would have either sunk or killed myself through the technical courses. I will miss the classroom itself. A place where we all come to learn and unwind from work. Snack night. Cracking a Diet Coke mid class to stay awake. Sharing the markers in economics for the graphs. Studying on Sundays. I will miss the professors. I've never had teachers and students work together so well to enhance the learning experience. 
3. I will miss the school work. I have a love/hate relationship with homework. I love to be lazy, but I can't stand it. And I love to work hard -- but only after I've delayed as long as possible. School work is not like work work. You can procrastinate and procrastinate and then feel the biggest satisfaction when it comes back: A. I will miss writing papers with a cocktail. 

But the future is bright, friends. And my tears are just a manifestation of the immense promise ahead.

I am learning French. I will be fluent someday.

I will learn to play the cello.

Someday I'll have a couple beautiful babies.

I will write the next great American novel.

Besides, (sniff sniff) my husband is still in school so I can live vicariously through him. 

Prepping for the Big Three-Oh

So. In just six short months, I will be (shhh) thirty. And I've been telling my husband and everyone: "OH! Thirty is SO YOUNG!" and "Age is nothing!" and telling myself that thirty won't effect me because I still look young (staying out of the sun and Asian genes have helped) and I'm healthy (thanks to vegetarianism) and I'm in a great place in my life (so happy, tra la la). I will have my MBA next year. My husband is still my best friend. I have a great job. I have awesome friends and family.

Whatthefuckever.

I can feel, deep in my gut, the ticklings of panic.

I

will

be

30

And now I'm telling myself that by thirty I should have done so much more with my life. I should already be published. I should already be making six figures. I should own a home. I should have a super fit fantastic body.

Obviously it's goal setting time. Here are four things I want to accomplish next year, not necessarily by the time I hit thirty, but before I'm thirty-one (i.e., absolutely ancient <--- I'm totally kidding. I think).

Goal 1:
Get a new job. I enjoy the job I have now. I love my coworkers and I feel valued in my workplace as someone who is reliable and competent. But I've been there since 2002 and it's time to move on. It's time to expand my knowledge and hopefully my paycheck.

Goal 2:
Get a new body. I enjoy the body I have now. It is cute and fun and gets me from A to B. But now, I need to have a rocking body because, let's face it, it may now begin the period of loosening and sagging that comes with my age. I don't want to have a young looking face and a crap body. So this means I've got to commit to controlling my portions and working out. A lot. I can do it.

Goal 3:
Get published. I always talk about blah-blah-be-a-writer and blah-blah-be-famous and guess what? That shit ain't gonna happen unless I a) write and b) submit it for publication. I'm not saying I want to have a fucking NOVEL done by next year, but I do need to heft up my portfolio and COMMIT to writing. Less TV, more reading and writing.

Goal 4:
Save more money. I don't want to buy a house necessarily but I do want to have gobs and gobs of money in savings that I can take lavish vacations, feel safe, and whenever I feel like it, buy a house.

Like all control freak, OCD, type A personalities, setting goals and making lists makes me feel as though I have a handle on my fate. I can make anything happen if I just work hard enough. And if there is one thing I know in life, it's how to work hard for things that I want.

Quote for Thought

"The
worst
thing
about
being
lied
to
is
knowing
you
weren't
worth
the
truth"

-- Unknown

Satisfied?

When I was in High School, I did NOT take psychology. I wasn't that interested...and I also figured best not to wade in uncharted waters. But once at University, I took a 1010 course in sociology and then an advanced course titled 'Sociology of Gender.' Fascinating stuff, sociology. Of course, it's a 'soft science' based on the general, not the specific, but it is nevertheless, fascinating. And, being a feminist, I love to ruminate on the sociological effects of being classified as "female" because I know how much of gender is reared -- not biological. I for one enjoy the constraints of girlhood; I love pink. I love getting dressed up. I love shopping. And so on. And if you were to ask my mother she would tell you that I loved those things as a small child, nay, an infant. She always tells people about how I loved dresses as a little girl. My mother is not a girly girl. Where did my ultra conformist feminine personality come from? Who knows. Perhaps I am simply more willing to go with the societal flow.

I am happy as a girl.

That is not to say that I am constrained by my gender, or by the gender of other people. I will stretch outside of my comfort zone to non-traditional territory. For example, many of you know that my husband did not work while he went to school and I was the bread winner. It did not bother me, but it did bother others. Maybe "bother" isn't the correct word; people thought the situation worth commenting on. And by commenting, I mean make snide remarks about how he wasn't employed even though he was not employed by choice, and a student, and we made plenty of money. These comments pissed off my gender sensibilities. WOMEN stay home all the time. WOMEN are unemployed often, or do intermittent work with no career path in mind. MEN do not comment on this situation.

Why don't they comment? Perhaps because they think it benefits them, or the family, or the wife herself. I for one do not think the cost is worth it. For those of you who know me personally, you know that I enjoy being busy, and yes, my opinion is slightly jaded towards being a "working woman." Part of this is because I know myself and I know that if I stayed at home I would be insane. Said insanity would then drive me to an asylum of some sort -- just to get me out of the fucking house. That is what I call self preservation.

I suppose this rant is coming from a head full to the brim of thoughts about wifedom and domesticity. Because, like I said, I don't mind my gender assignments, but maybe that's because I'm not trapped by them. Tom allows me to do and BE what I choose, and I in turn allow him the same. I'm reading 'The Feminine Mystique' and let me tell you; the mind reels. In the late 50s, after emancipation, during civil rights, even extending out to the hippy era, women all across the country were falling for the happy housewife. This myth that women are better in the home than in the work place. And women all across the country were tricked into thinking that college, even high school, were only as good as the husband it would catch them. Education was a means to an end; that end being a husband and family. Birth rates skyrocketed as women believed that their sole and best purpose was to procreate. Women were "happiest" at home cleaning and raising kids and taking care of their husbands and reading drivel and selling away their own dreams. (Does this sound familiar to anyone? Hello, Utah? Are you listening? Utah is still, to this day, a place where women stay home to raise a family and even though they are some of the most educated women in the country, they aren't doing anything with it. Perhaps this cultural phenomenon is tied with Utah's high methamphetamine abuse...) Sometimes I wish I wanted kids, simply because it would be an easy out. Throw my passions into my children, into motherhood, and worry about their well being rather than my own future. But that's not fair to me or to my hypothetical kidlings. That is not what would make me happy.

I think Carrie Bradshaw said it best: "Perhaps as women we've been given too many options...now we're unable to make a decision." The women's movement empowered women to think that they could do and be anything they wanted because they had been given the right to vote. But sometimes I think -- men always had the right to vote and they don't feel as though they can do or become anything. So maybe we got the wrong idea; our dreams got so big we couldn't possibly attain them and to make the failure less painful, we stay home, stay small, stay safe. I'm not meaning to bash stay-at-homes by saying this. In fact, Charlotte, in the same episode, said, "The women's movement is supposed to be about choice" which I believe. I believe in doing what makes one happy and obviously this is something I wrestle with in my own brain quite often. And I still have a difficult time putting the thoughts down in a comprehensive manner...

I guess what I'm really trying to say is: what will satisfy me?

Eeriness

We were talking tonight at work about scary movies or scary stories we had heard. It was harmless -- simple exchanges between us to fill the time. And I thought nothing of it; telling them about frightening books or dreams of my own.

But by the time I arrived home, all the things I had heard were lurking in the back of my mind. I wasn't thinking about them directly. The thoughts would slip past my consciousness and then back into the shadows. Tom was not yet home and the apartment was quiet. Still. I tidied up the bedroom. I walked into the closet to hang up shirts. As I reached up my arms I began to feel creepy and exposed. I turned around and looked out at the empty room. Nothing there, nothing to worry about. I held my breath and steadied myself to walk back out to the room and keep my back to the closet. I bent down to throw out the water bottles by the bed and stared at the dark space known as 'under the bed.' I looked over my shoulder to see the closet. Nothing. I threw away the water bottles and then went into the bathroom to organize the clutter on the counter. I stared at my reflection in the mirror, transfixed. Didn't Bloody Mary come out of mirrors? I thought I heard the front door open and close and ran to the stairs. As I peeked over the railing, waiting to see Tom walking up, I peeked over my shoulder again -- just to make sure nothing was behind me. And no one came up the stairs.

Eventually I turned on the TV in order to drown out my own fears and scary thoughts. I'm an adult, am I not? Shouldn't I be brave and think nothing of trivial things like ghosts or zombies? I've always hated being home alone because I get freaked out by the teeniest thing. And the worst thing is that even now, as a full grown human, I feel like a child, afraid of my own thoughts and imagination.

Enter October

I am and was a person of fears. No looking in the mirror in the dark (Bloody Mary might be looking out). No scary movies. No scary books. Nothing to spark my already overactive imagination.

Growing up our house was decked out in all manner of Halloween characters and pumpkins. Specifically frightening: a realistic looking skeleton which hung on the inside of the front door. I hated it because I feared it. I recall the feeling of its eyes staring at mine as I went down the stairs towards it, and then the inevitable turn, where I would have to turn my back to get to my bedroom. Was it still watching me? A quick turn revealed that it was. I started going down the stairs sideways - so I could always see what it was doing. If I was always watching it, it could not become real and hurl its bony body at me. I would lay awake in my solitary basement bedroom trying to fall asleep, even though I was fairly certain that a vampire was waiting in the shadows, waiting for my eyes to close, waiting to pounce.

As a teenager my mother purchased a motion activated plastic head covered in black cloth. When it was awakened the eyes would light up with red anger, saying "oooo" and shaking. A novelty item, but no less frightening. I would try to sneak past it, trying not to move while moving, holding my breath. And when you're a teenager - everyone wants to go to a fucking haunted house. It's hard to say to your friends that you're deathly afraid and that you don't want to go, because you don't want to be left out or miss out on gossip and fun...if you call scaring yourself fun.

I know many people think it's fun to be scared, and lots of people love Halloween, but October, to me, means fear. The costumes, the scary movies, the haunted houses. Nothing but a month of looking over my shoulder and pretending that I'm not frightened.