Life in the Middle Lane

Rebecca, brilliant chick that she is, has asked for participation in a Goal Meet-Up project.  Since I was planning on posting about my new goals anyway, I’m gladly joining her experiment.

Wanna hear it? Here it go!

So I’ve moved all my stuff and have been living with the GF since the end of June.  At first, I had a hellacious transition period because I moved with to Atlanta with no job and all my job leads were in California.  Initially, my plan was to keep looking for permanent employment in Cali, and get something short term (waiting tables) in the meantime.

Well, sometimes life has other plans. After just a few short weeks of looking, I landed a great job in Atlanta.  Of course, while I was job searching and mooching off the GF, my only two priorities were 1. Find a job so that I could be a contributing member of the household 2. Don’t drive the GF bonkers.

Once I got the job all squared away, and I started believing the GF when she said she wasn’t going to kick me out, I started to relax and think about life in the A. Since I’m going to be in Atlanta, I don’t want to be miserable.  I needed to get a life (and the GF strongly agreed).

So, in typical Monica-style I made myself a list, a “How to get a life” list if you will, of goals and stuck them on the vision board.  They are in order of importance and the go a little something like this:

Five things I need to work on

1. Meeting new people and Making friends
2. Getting my bills settled
3. Learning my new environment
4. Building my brand
5. Being a better friend, partner and family member

What I’ve done so far:

1. I have joined several meet-up groups and have gone to one of the events.  I have also joined a book club, and I foresee a lot of involvement there.  I have contacted a few local branches of my sorority, in hopes of becoming more active there.
2. I have created a budget and a mint.com account (thanks, Jenny Blake). I’ve called all my creditors about why I didn’t pay them all summer, and I’ve set up payment plans to get me back on track.
3. This is supposed to me be exploring Atlanta neighborhoods by myself without the GF’s GPS, but some Atlanta neighborhoods are scary and I shouldn’t be in them by myself. I’m tabling this til next month.
4. 4. I have had one meeting with a guy that could potentially build my website, but he’s not used to wordpress and I want to keep a wordpress framework, so it probably won’t work between us.  Anyone know any good (inexpensive) web designers?
5. 5. This will be an on-going goal.   My sister lives in Atlanta and I want to make sure I spend time with her. My mom gets lonely back home, and I need to keep good communication with her.  My brother, bless his heart, has finally joined the 21^st century and has email, so I want to write to him more often.  I want to keep in contact with my NC peeps, ‘cause I love and miss them. And I need to more honestly communicate in my relationship with the GF.  I can check that I have been doing all these things in August.

Next Month

1. Calling and/or emailing my friends in NC at least once a week. I’ve gotten out of touch with my MPA family
2. Watch how much money I spend at the grocery store. (I tend to go a bit overboard.)
3. I need to (a.) join (b.) go to (5x wkly) a gym; working out outside isn’t working for me.
4. Call my mom and sister twice a week, send my brother one email a week.  Send text messages to friends when I think of them.
5. Build a marketing campaign for Cosmopolitan Urbanist (and find a web designer)
6. Attend more meet-up events
7. Contact local commercial developers.
8. Show my emotions.
9. I think I’ve found the organization that I’d like to work with next, so now I have to bring myself to their attention. I’m going to attend their September board meeting, and say something useful while I’m there.
10. (Carried over from last month) Get a map of the interior of I-285 and explore different Atlanta neighborhoods, by car.

Wow. This is a lot of goals.  But since they are (mostly) things I was going to do anyway, I think I’m ok.

Over the past few days I’ve realized that I’m back on my “depression sleep cycle”.  Bed after midnight, sleep til 10am.  Yawn all day….eat junk….mope around.

During the hours when I am, what passes for awake, I trudge from restaurant to restaurant from temp agency to temp agency putting on my happy face, and telling them all why I would be just AWESOME as a hostess, bartender, server, administrative assistant, call center rep……and all I REALLY want to do is cry.

This is not my life.  At least, this is not the life I wanted/dreamed of/expected.  I mean, when I finish writing this post, I’m going down to the local CVS to apply for a job as a cashier.

And to think. I actually WENT to college. TWICE.

At night when I’m waiting (usually in vain) for my eyes to close and sleep to overtake me, I run through my mind all the people I need to email, all the staffing companies I still need to get to, all the cute little restaurants that I should drop by, and ask the Universe, God, whatever you want to call the higher being that keeps the world turning…… When will it end? When will I hit rock bottom?

I am beginning to believe that it is only when I am on the brink of a nervous breakdown, all my optimism is gone, and I have no other options that whatever breakthrough I’m supposed to have will happen.  I’ll have a moment of clarity, and the path I’m supposed to take will be clear, and I’l stop feeling like a fish out of water.

And I think it’s close.

Over the past month, my awesome life coach, Jenny Ferry, and I have been working on being present in my life. As the end of an era approaches, I am to take advantage of my classmates and other friends and love them and be with them while we are all in Chapel Hill. 

Tonight, a group of us got together and had Indian food. 

Not just normal Indian food.  One of us found this Indian lady who cooks every Wednesday at her house.  She doesn’t just cook; this woman stick’s her little Indian foot in it!  With an RSVP you can come to her house, eat in or take out dinner for $10 a person. 

We went in with tuberware, got a crazy amount of food, left and ate dinner (family-style) by the pool at our apartment complex. 

It was SO much fun. And the food was A-MAZING.

We ate, and talked about each other, our classmates, our professors.  As I am not a fan of small talk, I love intimate conversations about hopes, fears, concerns, life…. And tonight was that kind of conversation. 

 I love that every time I talk to my classmate friends I reveal parts of myself and learn new things about them.  I love our closeness, I love our easiness, I love our generosity with each other.  Even though we will be scattered across the country in a few weeks, and I will be soooooo far away from these crazies that I have come to love and admire, I KNOW that these are my life friends.  While our relationships will change with our geography, I have to beleive that we can remain a part of each other’s lives.  (otherwise I’ll go stark raving mad)

I love my ‘maties!

I have been having the best week!!! So far, I’ve had

It is day 3 of my Adventures in California, and what an adventure it has been! I’ve have 2 interview already and I have 4 set up for the next 2 days. I’ve also walked around the city, had a tour of Oakland and Berkeley, and today I had a tour of several awesome neighborhoods, visited Fisherman’s Wharf, the Golden Gate Bridge, Sausalito, and a bunch of other stuff.  (my brain is SOOOO full).

I haven’t really processed everything that has happened. I just know it’s been awesome and I’ve loved every second.

Lots of people have asked me, Why San Francisco? Why California? And honestly, I don’t have a great answer.

I’ve always wanted to live in California — in a REAL city. Through my research at school, I’ve come to really appreciate the politics, diversity, and progressiveness of the Bay area.  And frankly, when I daydream about my life, San Francisco makes a great backdrop.

Furthermore, when I think about how I felt about Atlanta and I compare it with how I feel about San Francisco, I’m so glad that the GF and I decided to make this city our new home.  The city (and this state) is not without its problems, and yet, I feel that this area is full of possibilities.  And I know deep in my heart that this is where I’m supposed to be.

I’ve taken over 600 pictures, and hopefully by the weekend I’ll have them up on Flickr.

I just wanted to give a quick update!

I’m going to bed.  The clock says 9pm but my body thinks it is midnight.

I haven’t slept well for the past few nights.  And there is no reason why I shouldn’t be sleeping well.  I’m not under a huge amount of stress, overall life is good.

This morning the gf was so excited.  She gave me a huge hug, and tried to hype me up. “It’s your last day,” she says.  And I give her a sleepy smile and say I can’t get excited.  Because I can’t, not because I don’t want to be.

And she asks me if everything is ok and I spill the beans about not sleeping.  She smiles and says, “YOU ARE EXCITED!”

Apparently, excitement causes me to not sleep.  This is not funny or fun.

Today has been a really fun day, though.  My big boss took me out to lunch.  She bought me a present and everyone signed a card. Then we came back to the office and had birthday cake (it was the big boss’s birthday) All of it was lovely.  And I’m so sad.

At some point this summer, I came to really like the people that I work with, and at some point, I came to really LOVE this little city.

This afternoon L and I took a walk around downtown. After the huge lunch and the bosses birthday cake, we needed to get the blood pumping.  And it hit me.  I really love this girl.  She’s one of those people that come into your life like she’s always been there.  I’ve known her for less than three months, but damn, she knows more of my business  than people that have known me for years (and she gets me and all my lame-ass intellectual jokes!!!). And after this summer, it’s gonna be hard to maintain the friendship that we have built. And that makes me sad.

I’ve established relationships with so many of my co-workers.  My co-workers are the coolest.  These are people that I can call on when I have a problem or a question or I just need someone to bounce my ideas off of.  And after this summer, I won’t be able to just walk down and plop myself in their offices.

And downtown D-town is the best (especially today with temperatures in the 80’s and not the 100’s!) It’s like Mayberry crossed with Manhattan (I know it sounds weird but it is the best, seriously)

And my internship has had its moments.  I have experienced here. (I’m big on experiencing things) And I’ve had fun here. And I’m sad, because there have been a lot of days when I thought that I wanted to get the hell out.  And I do. But I don’t.

See, that’s the thing about change and me.  We have a bittersweet relationship.

I don’t like change but I do like to do different stuff. So today I try to figure out how to keep things the same and different at the same time.  Because I don’t really want to stay here but I don’t want to leave all my people behind.  (I’m still trying to convince L to quit and come home with me.)

I already ache for the people that I’m leaving here. And I already miss the places that I love here.

But change happens and I gotta  go.

As my summer internship is coming to a close, the gf and I have been talking a bit about what we are going to do after I graduate from my super awesome MPA program.

We’ve talked about staying in Atlanta. I vetoed that because I hate the traffic, hate the sprawl, hate the rampant poverty, hate the politics (I could go on). We talked about staying in North Carolina, where she could finish some course work and I could work in a place where I have already established a network. She vetoed that because she’s already lived in NC for 10 and wants to try something else, and she also made a good argument about me moving beyond my comfort zone. So, bottom line, we are moving somewhere completely new.

I have been building a list of “places to live” for a while, and amazingly so has the gf. And even more amazingly, we have a number of cities in common. So the places that we are currently looking at for next year are Denver, Colorado and Tempe, Arizona.

The gf, who is a bit more “control” than I am, asked me last week if I had started looking for jobs, to which I replied that no, I hadn’t started looking at jobs (I’m not moving until next year!!! I have some time yet.) I was able to report that I had started researching the different organizations in the city to see if any interest me. Actually, I started looking at a number of cities as early as last August to see the different kinds of downtown planning they were engaging in.

That’s when the gf said something that I’d never thought of. She said that by looking at the job market now, I could start preparing for what will be on the market next year.

In her care, it totally makes sense. Her field is Educational Technology, which is still so new of a field that she sometimes has to explain to potential employers that they need someone with her skills. So if there are organizations in Denver and Tempe that already understand that they need someone with her particular skill set, then she already has a leg up.

In my case, I’m not so sure that canvassing the job market now will give me any indication of what will be available because local governments don’t really recruit on CareerBuilder. They usually recruit on their own sites and on government specific job sites. I can put myself in a better position by making friends with government headhunters or with local government managers in the area or that already work in organizations that interest me. It makes more sense for me to tell them that I’m interested in moving and working in Denver/Tempe/wherever and beg them to keep me (and my resume) in mind. (I’m already starting to work on strengthening my network in the mid and southwest)

We did have a giggle at my ability to get jobs just by expressing interest and asking for an informational interview. So often when talking to potential employers, I start by saying, I’m Monica. I’m an MPA student at UNC and I’m interesting in learning more about what you do. Can I come by and talk to you? During the interview, if I like what I hear, I give them my pitch. I tell them how I can help them with whatever problem/issue/new development they are having. I’ve gotten at least two of my last jobs that way

And even if having informational interviews doesn’t get me a job, it still gives me one more person to add to my network.

So my summer move to Atlanta got off to a brilliant start. Friday started off like every other day last week. I woke up about 8:30 am, and shortly thereafter I started moving stuff. This time, however, moved my stuff from my brand-new less than week old apartment to my car. Because … Friday was moving day!!! (again, lol)

I packed up all my stuff in my car and went to my last day at work. I stayed at Orange County for an extra week, mostly because I wanted to attend my co-worker’s baby shower. Besides the baby shower, Friday was a big day for me at work. I had to finish the last two projects that I’ve been working on for the past month or so that I have been procrastinating finishing for the past two weeks, but that is a different story.

It was important for me to stay for the baby shower because my co-worker is the most beautiful pregnant woman I have ever seen, I wanted to spend that time with her. And I enjoyed the shower, I learned about how to care for a newly circumcised baby penis. (I know, I was a little distraught, too)

My plan was to stay for a bit of the shower, and be on the road to Atlanta by 3:30pm. Instead, I stayed at work until 5, playing at the baby shower and talking to my co-workers (whom I’m gonna miss like crazy)

Anyway, of course right before it was time to leave work, it starts to rain. I get in my car to go to my mom’s house, and almost there, the truck in front of me stops and when I try to stop, my stupid heavy over-full car slides right into the back of the damn pick-up in front of me. No worries, I’m fine. But I’ve ruined my car and I couldn’t get a rental until Saturday (boo!).

But today I am in Atlanta. I have unpacked my suitcases and I have to be at work at 9am tomorrow. And I will probably be at work until 10pm. Yes, work from 9-5, 5:30 dinner meeting, 6:30 work session and 7:30 Budget presentation. I know, right. Trial by fire, bitches!!!!!

I’ll let you know how it goes. Ta-ta

I started packing up my life (i.e my apartment) yesterday. I’ve been putting if off for weeks now. I knew the end of my lease was coming, and I’ve known for a long time that 1). I was spending the summer in Atlanta 2). I was gonna move from my 2 bedroom into something else 3). I have a LOT of stuff.

Knowing all those things should have propelled me to get started on the packing all my sh*t up a lot sooner than 10 days before the move. But I am a procrastinator by nature and I really thought that something miraculous would happen so that I wouldn’t have to do the actual packing and sorting and throwing away.

Which brings me to why moving makes me sad. Moving forces me reflect on my life. It is once of the few (maybe the only) time I actually allow myself to think about what I’ve done over the year (I say a year b/c I tend to move once yearly) and if I’m any closer to doing whatever it is that I really want to do. For some super successful people, moving day would equal happy day and they would celebrate their progress. Unfortunately, I am not a super successful person, and moving day isn’t so much happy for me.

Packing only shows me all the things that I’ve been really excited about, spent money on, carted around, and promptly forgotten about. I have years (yes, years!!) worth of Self, Shape, Vogue, Glamour, Health magazines… and I don’t think I’m any more healthy or beautiful or fit because of them.

I found no less than 8, count ‘em-8!! books on how to pass the LSAT, as well as, the 116 Best Law Schools, So you want to be a lawyer?, at least 4 unfinished applications to law school, various catalogs for various law and public policy schools around the country. And I’m not in f-ing LAW SCHOOL!!!!!

I found a whole folder full of all the houses/condos/townhouses that I spent at least 6 months of my life meticulously poring over before I found the perfect one, had a panic attack, cried like a baby and chickened out of purchasing, assorted anatomy study guides for my aerobics instructor exam, as well has at least 50 books that I have purchased or stolen from friends that I have every intention to read but never got around to….. sigh. All the things that make me, while not quite a failure… definitely not a success.

So I think this is why I’m sad. Moving reminds me of all the things I was supposed to do, all the goals and dreams that I’ve put on hold, all the things that I don’t have time for and all the fun and/or interesting things that I’ve tried, but that for whatever reason just didn’t stick.

I want to believe that this is why I’m sad. But it could also be that as a small child we moved around a lot and since I didn’t own anything I liked it. Moving frequently works well with my short attention span and wander personality.

When we settled in Orange County, all I wanted was to live somewhere else. sadly, the one thing that made it happen was my parents’ divorce. We moving and it was simultaneously the best and the worst. College came shortly after and I moved out of my mother’s house and into a dorm room. Over 4 years of college I moved into and out of 3 more dorm rooms.

Every year I was sad. Sad that I was leaving, sad that everyone else was leaving, sad that things were changing, probably sad that I was going home and not going to some ultra fabulous locale where my life would finally start. After college, I lived with one of my cooler friends and life would have been grand if I have loved or even semi liked my job- which I didn’t. Which made my whole life suck.

After that experiment, I went home, back to my mother’s house. Where the wonderful job came, and I was supposed to be getting my life together and preparing to live on my own. Instead I lived in my old room, with all the crap that I have been collecting my entire life for 3 years! Fast forward to 2007, I’m grad school-bound, and some pivotal things have transpired to push me into semi-adulthood and alas, into my own apartment. Where life has been, mostly grand, with some really high points and a few not so high points thrown in as Life tends to do. And mostly I’ve felt really put together and on the right path, sort of.

Which brings me back to the freaking beginning. I think I’m still waiting for my life to begin. And I’m waiting for all the crap that I’ve been collecting, the plans, the self-help bullsh*t, all the unread books, all my failed attempts to journal to finally pay off. For once I’d like to move and not feel this overwhelming sense of loss and disappointment.

I’d like not to feel like I almost got it right, that I’m almost there, that if I push just a little harder that my f-ing life will finally begin and I’ll finally know what the hell I’m supposed to be doing. But until then, I continue to pack up all my shit and just feel sad about the whole damn thing.