Let's step into Lisa's mind

Quitting my job a couple weeks ago has jolted me back into forward thinking: What am I going to do with my life?!? I found myself as a jobless bartender, with bills, with an Associate of Arts Degree, about to be 27, living at home (with 3 adults- with whom no matter how much I love them- drive me nuts), longing for privacy and independence, and just generally down on myself.

"What have you done with the past ten years LISA!!!?!!!"

The past week I’ve been job hunting, bar and otherwise. Although I'm very bright, have a degree, I'm accomplished academically, and capable of any job thrown at me from building a flat with crazy dimensions, to writing a brilliant review of a scholarly journal, to making that bloody mary with the horseradish and all- that my customers love oh so well; I am somehow not qualified for the mindless job of filing records in the back of some office. So I say to myself "Well, just go back to the bar, somebody will hire you."

I have this plan to go to the University of West Georgia in January to finish my Theatre and Comm. studies. In the past five years I've gone from wanting to be a Theatre professional to wanting to be a Historian to wanting to be a Theatre professional. (And within all this wanting to keep writing) The plan is well played out in my mind. I see my little shitty (emphasis on mine though) apartment, I see myself studying, working. But I have this nagging feeling, maybe it's just a fear, that I won't do it. Then I fear that if I go through with it, maybe I'll hate my job after its all said and done, and I should've gone after History after all.

This is where we step into my brain. I get the suggestion to join the Army and I'm like "No Way!" even though I know it is a route to independence, structure, income (enough anyways), career finding path blah blah blah. And I know that what I need is a SOLID PLAN. So a few hours later I'm actually thinking about it. I even look up the website, and after reading a little I was once again convinced that it is not the life for me, not at this point. It might've worked for me when I was 19. I was actually thinking about joining the Air Force at that point too. So I brain storm, "think: plan, structure, career." And I go back to the idea (I have many times entertained) of being a flight attendant. I look up all these airlines looking for job openings, and as I read the job descriptions I realize that it is like being a bartender but worse! I know how I get on a long flight, I remember all the assholes and headaches that go along with traveling, and realize that I don't want to be one of those people who have to put up with the bad attitude of every type of person imaginable. Then I start thinking about the fact that I was planning to go back to college.

I look up the U of West GA website, again, and I start looking at the classes I would be taking. I get all excited and go "Ooh, I'll take this and this and this my first semester. I could even take a history class for the hell of it." I go into the History classes and I start thinking "What if going for that Theatre thing is a mistake? What if I'm supposed to go into History and be a professor. Look at these classes! I would love to take that one!" Then I start to think well, if I went back to History (which I have my A.A. in), I wouldn’t have to go to Carrollton, I could go to a school in Atlanta.

All this in less than twenty-four hours.

GOOD GOD WOMAN, MAKE UP YOUR MIND!

What is wrong with me? I love so many things, and ideas, but am not willing to commit fully to any. I have got to get my act together. That's all there is to it. So I'm going to do some serious thinking the next few days about what it really is I want to accomplish, and then go for it damn it. I hate feeling like a space cadet. I'm too old for this crap.

I was reminded, and it is very true, that I need to look at how far I've come in the last few years. I did have some major setbacks in my career building history, some of them my fault, some fate. So there's really no room to be down on myself. I only need to keep moving forward (I see it as trudging along, swimming because it's the only option I have, living the roller coaster that is Lisa, but whatever).

So there it is. What I wanted to say today.