Life

Life

Every year on my birthday I look at my life.  I look at what I've done and where I'm going.  It seems every year I dream of the same things.  I want to be happy.  I want a job I am passionate about.  I want to be in love.  I'm twenty eight years old and there are so many things I haven't done yet.  I wonder how my life ended up like this.  I went to college and I thought when I graduated all my dreams would start to happen.  They didn't.  I have a lot of great people in my life and I've had a lot of great experiences but there are some things missing from my life.  I have so many dreams that seem to be moving further and further away from me.  Time passed so quickly and before I knew it, I turned twenty eight years old.  I feel like I am stuck here.  I am just stuck in this place and I can't get out of it.  I'm stuck at home.  I'm stuck at my job.  I'm stuck being single.  I worry that I'm going to be stuck forever.

         It seems like I'm just here.  I'm watching everyone around me growing up and living their lives.  I'm standing still while everyone passes me by, while life passes me by.  I'm just here, waiting for my life to start.  It's hard to figure out what you want in life.  There's so much out there, so much to experience, and so much to accomplish.  Where do you start and how do you start?  I graduated college and came back home.  I had no idea what I was going to do with my life.  I thought that's what college was for.  I thought you found yourself in college.  I thought you figured out what you wanted to do with your life.  I have a Theatre degree and have no idea what I was supposed to do with it.  I left all my friends to come home and try to find a job.  I wasn't even looking for a job I wanted.  I was looking for a job just to have a job.  I needed health insurance, I needed money, and most of all I needed my mom to stop nagging me to get a job.

         It took me over a year to find a job.  It wasn't a job I wanted.  It was a for now job.  It was a job till I found my dream job.  I knew before I even walked in I was going to hate it.  I knew I had to do it.  I knew I needed a job.  I knew had no choice.  Somehow that doesn't seem right.  I worked my ass off to graduate college and I have to take a job that I have no interest in just so I have a job.  It's now been over four years and I'm still there.  I'm still a claims examiner.  I sit at a computer for eight hours a day, sometimes nine depending on the day.  I process claim after claim and I am suppose to act like I care about each and everyone.  I look around at the people that have been there for twenty years and I fear that will be me.  I seriously don't know what I would do if I'm at this job for that long.  The thought makes me want to cry.  I leave work at the end of the day I don't think about it again until next day.  When I leave I feel like I have not accomplished anything.  I don't think I have made any significant impact to the world.  If I quit I wouldn't even be missed, someone else would just do my work.  I could be replaced in minutes.  I would be erased from the system like I was never there.  I can't work the rest of my life in a place like that.  I don't want my career to be a claims examiner.  It might be right for some people but it's not right for me.

I am twenty eight years old and I have accomplished nothing that I thought I would have at this time.  I have never been in love.  That's really hard to say.  It's harder to say than, "I'm a claims examiner".  It's actually embarrassing.  Most people my age have been in love numerous times.  My friends are getting married and I have never even been in love.  I thought I would be married at this age but instead I've never been in love.  Why haven't I been in love?  How does that even happen?  Am I not good enough to be loved?  Do I not deserve to fall in love?  I don't know why I haven't.  Maybe I haven't met the right person yet.  I don't even know if the right person exists.  What if I spend my life looking for the right person and I never find him.  Maybe timing is everything.  What if I'm never in the right time?  I don't know what it is.  I could think about it forever and never figure it out.  I know I'm good enough.  I know I deserve it as much as anyone.  I know I want it and I'm ready for it.

         I don't want to be single anymore.  I'm over the single life.  I am tired of going to family functions and weddings alone.  One thing worse then going to a wedding alone is not even being invited with a date.  It's like your friends are saying that they don't even think you can get a date.  I've been told that it's because I wasn't in a long term relationship when the invites were sent out.  So because I was not in a long term relationship I have to go to your wedding alone.  It feels like a punishment.  I have to sit there alone.  I have watch all the couples dance while I'm alone because I wasn't in a relationship when the invitations were sent out.  I was in two of my friends wedding and I wasn't invited to either of them with a date.  Being in the wedding doesn't even get you invited with a date.  It's humiliating and it hurts.

         I am at this age now where people expect me to be in a certain place in my life.  I'm expected to have a career, to be married, have kids, and live this perfect life.  I am so far away from any of that.  I feel like people look down on me because I'm not where they think I should be.  It's like there is an order of how things are suppose to be done and time frame they are supposed to be done in.  If it's not done in that order and within that time then you have failed.  People actually look at you like you have failed.  I can't even count how many times I've been asked, "Why don't you have a boyfriend?"  What kind of a question is that?  What kind of a person asks a question like that?  I ask myself that question all the time and now I have other people asking me.  It hurts to ask myself that question and it kills when someone else asks me.

         The questions don't end there.  Not only do I get the third degree about my love life or lack of, but I also get it about my job.  I'm constantly asked if I like my job, if I'm looking for a new one, or what I want to do.  The answers are always the same.  I hate my job, I'm not looking for a new one, and I have no idea what I want to do.  The response I get is usually, "Oh, well that's okay".  That statement is followed by the look of failure.  I don't need anyone telling me its okay and I certainly don't need to be judged by anyone.  Why do people think that they have right to judge me?

         How did I end up here?  Of all the for now jobs I could have gotten, why a claims examiner?  I believe that everything happens for a reason.  I struggled for awhile trying to figure out the reasons I am a claims examiner.  I realized that's it not the job but the people I've met there.  I've made some great friends, which I know will be in my life for a long time.  I know certain people are meant to be in my life and I don't know if they would be if I had a different job.  Maybe there are more people that are meant to come into my life through this job.  Maybe there are other reasons that I haven't figured out yet.  I know I should use this time to figure what I want out of life, if that's even possible.  I'm trying my best to figure it all out.  It's not as easy for me as it is for others.  A couple years ago I decided I was going to go back to school and get my teaching degree.  I thought it would be perfect.  I could go to work and go to classes.  I filled out my application, wrote my essay, and got recommendations.  I waited three months to get a rejection letter.  I was disappointed and discouraged.  I like teaching but maybe teaching was not the direction I'm meant to go in.

         I'm turning thirty soon, too soon.  I'm terrified.  Is this going to be my life at thirty?  Am I still going to be a claims examiner?  Am I still going to be living at home?  Am I still going to be single?  At some point in my life something has to change.  This year I turned twenty eight and I promised myself this year would be different.  This would be the year that I would start living my life.  I would take risks.  I would stop watching others live and start living my life.  Things would change and I would be happy.  It's been several months and things haven't changed.  How long is it going to take till I find someone to share my life with?  When am I going to find a job that I am passionate about and that I want to spend the rest of my life doing?  How am I going make a difference in the world?  When are people going stop judging me?  How am I going to stop judging myself?  When are my dreams going to come true?  How are my dreams going to come true?  I have so many questions that I want answers to.          

Are all dreams meant to come true?  I'm not sure they are.  No matter what we have we always want more.  If we accomplish one thing there is always something else we want to accomplish.  Does anyone ever get everything they want out of life?  It is possible to go through life and not get anything you hoped for?  Everyone gets something different out of life.  Some people get everything they want and others don't.  Everyone lives life different.  I want to get everything I'm supposed to get out of life.  I want to be something in this world.  I know I am meant for something more in life.  Is it possible that I am preventing myself from reaching my dreams?  Am I the reason I'm stuck in life?  Maybe I don't put myself out there enough.  If I don't try then how can I fail?  Maybe my fears of failing are preventing me from being happy.  Are there other people that feel the same way as me or am I alone?  I don't have any of the answers.  I may not ever have the answers but I believe some day things will change for me and I will be happy.  I have to believe that.  If I don't believe in that then what do I have?



                             

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