May 10, 2013

Take Out the Trash Day

Dear Only Faithful Reader, this is not so much a "blog post" as it is a brain dump. So Amanda, try to not judge me too hard. J'adore.

I have been thinking a lot on how I never finish anything, about how I aim for the lowest possible option when I do anything. I shoot for the C+ to pass, I do an easy job that pays shit because I don't think I can do anything else, I take pictures and then do nothing with them because I'm afraid of others' judgement, I make obligations and then dread them, I start projects and leave them half finished. 

I would insert a picture here, but that would be way too mortifying for me.

I have a box, actually I could fill a room with half finished crochet/ knitting/ sewing projects, long abandoned, accumulating dust with no hope of ever becoming what it started out as. I literally have a box filled with half or 3/4 completed bracelets. You know the ones, the stupid friendship bracelets made with embroidery floss that everyone has in the summer and "Oh my God! I'm never going to take it off because we're best of friends forever and ever and ever!!!" and then they're cut off well before the first day of school. Yeah. Those. I have probably 12 from years ranging 2000-last summer. All well thought out, none finished. 
I don't really know why. It's not like a 3 year old is going to judge me on my crocheting skills. Maybe I just get tired of it, I don't know. This one I totally don't get.

College. Dear college, hello Mr. C and D grades. I was glad for a C. I am smart, and I'm not just saying that to whatever, I mean, I am very smart. And I am very capable of doing well and getting good grades and being smart or something. (See what I did there was a little facetious.) But no, I was excited for that C and Bs would be shocking. I've been trying to figure that out for, oh I don't know, 21 years? I have always wanted my teachers/professors to like me. Maybe I don't believe I'm actually as smart as I think I am. I don't think that I'm as articulate on paper as I am in person and I've always been terrified that authority figures will think I'm an utter idiot. I once handed in a paper that I worked my ass off on. I handed it to my prof, she looked at it, made a face, crossed out a couple of paragraphs and then an entire page, and handed it back to me. She gave me a day extension. I went home and wept. I've never told anyone that. Well, there you go internet. 
The next semester I handed in an 8 page paper that was supposed to be no less than 15 pages for a professor that I knew was a stickler for page count. I got an A on the paper and had so many points taken off for length that I got a C and I didn't care. I acted like I didn't care. Did I actually care? Maybe. That professor was a douche. If it was for anyone else I would have cared more. 
Except I did mostly that exact thing for everyone. A/Bs on tests and always participated in class, then didn't hand in anything else. Because I knew it would suck. Because everything I do sucks. 

My job. I am a Nanny, and don't get me wrong, I love my job. I adore the kids I watch and I love doing it. Let me say that first. Now, seriously people, I am a nanny. My friends all have real jobs. Even Logie has a government job where she is responsible for kids' lives and safety. Politics, government, business,  public safety, law. I feel like all of my friends have real adult people jobs and I'm stuck here watching children for barely over minimum wage for an absurd amount of hours, and that's when I can find a job. I've been unemployed for so long that I would kill for crappy underemployment like last year. Who needs benefits? 401k's are for chumps. IRS tax withholdings? Psssht, lame. 
Why can't I get a real job? Why can't I get a job? I've had interviews and sent so many messages to families and resumes to businesses and heard nothing. Honestly it gets so very discouraging. 

At growth group this week we talked about doing things out of duty versus doing things out of love. I don't think I realized how discouraged I was with everything in my life until I was asked what call to service I have denied because I felt unqualified? It's not a call to service that I've denied. I feel it may be everything in my life I've denied because I feel unqualified. 
At what point in your life did you first feel the joy of serving God? And I have been struggling ever since to remember the last time I felt joy at all. I have feelings. I have all of the other feelings, I just can't remember the last time, or if ever, I have been joyous. Maybe I don't know what the word itself means.  

There's a lot of things that I don't know. For being a very smart person, there are simply a lot of things that I do not know and a lot of things that I do not want to acknowledge about myself. Psychoanalysts for another day, I suppose. 

Thanks for sticking with me (mostly Amanda). 

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