DINK – a glimmer of hope!
I was having dinner the other evening at Silk City, an upscale diner in Philadelphia. It was a gorgeous day, so there was no better time to enjoy a nice dinner outside in Silk’s backyard beergarden. I was about to take the first bite of my caesar salad when a noise stopped in me in my tracks. It was loud, burping and incoherent – it was someone’s child! While his parents were trying to participate in “adult” conversation, this little one was bumping his curly little head into the back of my chair, pulling at his mom’s hand as she tried to fork her dinner and picking his nose, with no remorse.
I looked up to the sky at one point and thanked the heavens that HE was not My child.
The funny thing is that around Mother’s day this year – not sure if it’s because I turned 25 and therefore look and seem older, or if people were just assuming that as a young black female, I had a brood of little thugs that I called my own, but EVERYWHERE I went, people were shouting out, Happy Mother’s Day! I was at the point where if one more person wished me well on my illegitimate holiday, I was going to snap!
This got me thinking. As a 25 year old female, should I be thinking of procreating? Or am I totally crazy because that’s the farthest thing from what I want at this point?
I read an article in the Advocate about gay men, and their disdain for parenting. The article said that a lot of gay men choose not to have children, even if they are partnered, because they feel that if they have to sacrifice their beach houses, luxury cars and prada shoes, for an infant, they’d rather go without! After reading this article, I had to take a long hard look in the mirror – was I a gay man trapped in a woman’s body? I almost believed it for a second as I do have a penchant for house music, GLEE and pampering myself, but then I discovered the acronym, DINK.
DINK, by Wikipedia standards, means Dual Income No Kids. DINKs are categorized as high wage earning couples who choose not to have children so they can lead a “more expensive consumer lifestyle” – I found my niche!
With growing studies on Millenials (people born between 1980 and 2000), and our culturally liberal/consumer driven/taking longer to establish a career/marrying above and beyond previously assumed age limits, lifestyles – it’s seems only natural that kids of this generation might put having kids off longer, if they have them at all.
My mother would slap me, and probably will, once she reads this, as she cannot wait to have grandchildren. She never mentions it, but I can feel her looking at my stomach in longing, every time we’re together! She would say, “Sheri! You are the best thing that’s ever happened to me :0), how could you not want that?” To which, I would answer, “Mom, it’s not that I don’t want that, I’m just weighing my options!”
Here’s what I’ve boiled it down to – and will be choosing for now (give me a few years and I can almost guarantee I’ll have baby fever):
Breast lifts over Breast Pumps
Prada bags over diaper bags
Sleeping in over exhaustion
Real dates over play dates
and
Happy hours over Baby Showers
Do YOU have baby fever? If so, tell me about it!
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I’ve worked two days this week, and my clients/customers have already blown my mind. Here’s just a sample of the things I’ve dealt with thus far.
Return of the Mack
Customer, while working with my coworker: What’s your name?
Me: Sheri (turning back around to my computer)
Customer: Oh hey Sharon, I’d like to take you out.
Me: No thank you.
Customer, to my co-worker: Sharon over there acting all anti-social, won’t let me take her out for a cheesesteak. What Sharon, you can’t talk to me like “that” because you’re on your job?
Me: It’s Sheri, and no, it’s not that, I wouldn’t talk to you like “that” anyway.
Dirty old men are the worst kind of men!
Scene: Discussing the possibility of customer buying a blackberry to replace his iPhone.
Customer: So you’re saying that it’s easier to type on it. (Motions with fingers in the air as if he is playing with keys). Does that turn you on?
Me: No (in disgust)
Customer: Well it turns me on, just thought you might feel the same.
Same customer, no less than 2 seconds later.
Customer: The other day when I met you, I left here smiling …
Me: Why?
Customer: Because I was glad to hear that you weren’t a lesbian or anything, not that I have a problem with that, but it was nice to know I had a chance.
Mind you, this man was 50+ years old, bearded, large and carried a backpack with his name engraved on the front.
Law and Order had me fooled
Background: Partner at a notable firm in Philadelphia. Business Client.
You can call her Miss B, if you’re nasty! We just call her BIG B to spare her the embarrassment of being known as the rudest person alive!
She walks in to the store, Me (smiling): Hi, you’re back, how are you?
Customer, in response: Do you have my phone?!
Me: Ma’am, to set up your backflip we will need your email address and password.
Big B: WHY would you need that? This is ridiculous. I’m very important, I can’t just give these things out.
Further exchange:
Me: This is touch screen, but you can get a screen protector to keep it clean.
BIG B: I can’t tolerate that, I hate cases and screen protectors.
Me: For this particular phone, you will need a data plan.
BIG B: $60 a month is extreme for a phone, I don’t like this at all. (Mind you, she is a partner at a law firm – so let’s estimate income here, it’s probably a cool Mil per year, what is that like .0000000002 % of her income?!)
Me: This is a smart phone ma’am, so because the phone has a lot of functions, the battery will need to be charged at times throughout the day.
BIG B: OH NO, I wont have that! I will not be in a place to charge this, and do not want to spend my valuable time charging this phone. (So you’re telling me that as a partner at a law firm, you’re never at your desk OR in your car!?
And it’s only Tuesday.
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and I met her!
Amy Banse, VP of Comcast’s Interactive Media, and breast cancer survivor created Comcast’s PBS Sprout, an ON Demand channel feauturing Bob the Builder and other child-friendly pacifiers, on a “bad day”. She said it was one of those days where she was trying to pacify one screaming child, and entertain another, who was crying for a Thomas the Tank Engine episode. She couldn’t find one on the 2oo channels available to her, and thought “God Damnit, why can’t these be on when I NEED them to be” – it was there, in that moment, that her idea for PBS ON Demand was born.
I actually attended a successful networking event today, which is quite unusual, because as I mentioned before, they’re usually “date nights for the unfortunate”! Today’s event entitled Women Take Charge, catered to professional women in the Philadelphia area, and gave me the opportunity to hear from powerful women like Amy Banse. You could literally taste the estrogen in the room – it was so strong that I can almost guarantee that I am “cycle sisters” with about 150 women now!
Amy Banse was the key note speaker and I LOVED her message. She spoke on independence, drive and benign neglect, which I will get to later. It’s so often when I find myself the only woman at these types of events, so this opportunity was refreshing. Banse was followed by 3 panel members, partners and CEO’s of Fortune 500 companies, who spoke on everything from the ever-changing and increasing demands on women in the workplace, to maintaining a work life balance.
Here’s some key points that I took away from the event in regards to success and manuevering our way through the businessworld:
Eliminate Swirl – Swirl, as Banse explained, is the drama, the competition, the negativity and conflicting ideas and directions that exist in the workplace. She said that most men eliminate swirl on a regular basis ie. they don’t take bullshit home with them or bring it in to work with them. Another panel member mentioned that this is partially because their idea of priorities ie. working, taking care of the home, working out etc. is one fold in that their main goal is to be successful at work, but she said that we can almost learn something from them. I find that in my personal experience, it is SO EASY to get caught up in office politics, and other people’s intentions, while sometimes in the right place, can at times hamper us – so the idea here is to cut that out of your life! Focus on the things that you can directly control, ie. how well you do at your job, and how well you balance your life. Everything else, including what you could’ve, would’ve, should’ve done, needs to go out the window! It’s a waste of time!
Prioritze – Many of the women on the panel discussed the idea of priorities, and how sometimes we are so put off when our priorities don’t match those around us. How often have you felt like you have your stuff together, then someone comes along and says, “Hmm have you thought about Grad school?” or “Why are you working there when you could be working there?!” Your jump shot that you thought was a shoe in, just bounced off the rim and hit you in the face! It’s ok to have differing priorities, just know what they are and stick to it. I know that personally, whenever doors open for me, my priorities change a bit because I’m realizing that I can accomplish this or that, and just because my friends and/or coworkers are on another path, neither is better or worse, they’re just different.
Benign Neglect- One thing I worry about as a working woman is the effect that my work, and desire to be successful at it, will have on my kids. Not that they’re coming ANYTIME soon, but even in 2010, there is still a negative connotation associated with mother’s who work.
I was really glad to hear from Amy Banse that she believes in what she calls “benign neglect” aka letting your kids figure out most things by themselves. As most of us know, children are extremely resilient, but I’ve heard talk of so much guilt from mothers who leave the home to pursue their career goals.
My mother was a firm believer in nurturing but letting go, so benign neglect in a way. She allowed me to make mistakes, but always guided me in the right direction.
One of the panel members told a story about her friend saying, “My child thinks that I only exist to cart him to and from his sporting events,” to which she responded with a story about a “show and tell” day that she missed at school. She said that she felt terrible that she couldn’t be there but was traveling for work. One afternoon, as she was picking up her child, one of the parents stopped her and told her that on the day she missed from school, her child stood up and said, “My mommy can’t be here today because she is at work. She is superwoman and can do anything!” She said it melted her heart, and it touched mine too.
Keep Calm and Carry On – Banse mentioned that this was a propaganda poster printed during WWII. It sounds very German doesn’t it – like arms up, fingers straight! Although I might not have referenced Nazi Germany as an encouraging point in my speech, I liked the bottom line. It means, keep your head down, stay focused and keep it movin’!
Too many times, I find myself rehearsing lines after the fact – like, I should’ve said this in the meeting, or I should’ve handled that client or my coworker this way! From this, in 6 weeks, take a look at situations that you really stressed over, something that caused you a bit of turmoil, and analyze how you feel about it now. Do you still feel that strongly about it? If you don’t now, then why stress over it then, right? Easier said than done, I konw…but it definitely puts some things into perspective.
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The iPhone is watching you…
No really, it has a camera on the front that they tell YOU is for skyping aka internet sex, but actually reports your life and all it’s wonders back to Steve Jobs, so he knows just how to market his product to your needs – aka TAKE OVER YOUR MIND!
This may be a little harsh, but people are literally going crazy over this phone! I spent my entire workday fielding calls about whether or not my business clients could pre-order the iPhone for the whole office. There hasn’t been this sort of frenzy since POGS.
AT&T is also making it that much easier for everyone to join the legion of iPhone users by lowering the pricing on their data plans – so now there will be that many more people typing then deleting then typing then deleting their text messages on their poorly calibrated touch screens, while driving; walking into traffic because they’re too engaged in their ski-ball games and sucking up all the frequency so everyone else drops calls!
I work in the telecom industry, so I rely on cellular users for my livelihood, but I feel like I’ve gotten the short end of the stick with iPhoners – they can be downright mean! I guess we can’t blame them right? Mac makes people feel like they can control the world from the palm of their hands, so why not act like it?
For instance, I had a customer come in the other day, and he was livid. The first words out of his mouth were, “I am so angry with AT&T right now I could flip”. I asked him why, and he explained that he didn’t understand how AT&T had the audacity to take away their unlimited data plans. He’d recently cracked his screen, like every other iPhone user I know, so he had to revert back to his Razor (do you remember those, they were like the iPhone of the early 2000s), until he purchased the new iPhone. Because he’d changed his “plan” he was no longer eligible for the unlimited data package. AT&T sent out a press release saying that once you’d changed phones or upgraded, you could either stick with your unlimited package, as it would be “grandfathered” in, or you could take one of the lower packages, never to return again.
So I told the customer what AT&T told me to tell him, which was, “They say that 98% of people use 2GB and below, so tell me what you use your phone for, and we can figure out what plan might work best for you.” To which he told me, “I stream A LOT of videos (probably porn), A LOT, so I can’t worry about my data usage!!” I took a step back, because I knew I wasn’t getting anywhere, and told the customer that I would check his usage from his last 3 bills just to make sure he wasn’t getting jilted. He responded by saying it didn’t matter, because AT&T was a bunch of assholes for changing the policy. I took a look at his bill anyway, because I was determined to prove him wrong! :0) So I researched his last 4 bills, and politely told the customer that based on his usage which was about 50 MB a month, he was NOWHERE CLOSE to needing to spend $30 a month on data, or the unlimited plan. Believe me, he didn’t say thank you when he gruffly exited the store doors.
I’m not saying that all iPhone users are this irate, but from my experience a lot of them are – I guess I would be too if I bought an uninsurable $300 phone, and cracked the screen 2 weeks after purchase. I am however saying that many people are frightfully attached to their iPhones, and literally can’t live without them. To quote Chris Matyszczyk of CNET, “they treat them as if they were a peculiar and exotic lover, one they can hardly believe they have managed to seduce.”
I can’t wait to see what the next “Big Thing” is, but until then, I’ll be swamped fielding questions about whether or not the iPhone can “really drive your car or cook your meals” like the reports say!
If I don’t ever post again, it’s because Steve Jobs and MAC got a copy of this, and they’ve liquidated my brain! lol
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My coworkers have a wedding this weekend, so I agreed to man the store, which means that I have the pleasure of catching up on my Golden Girls and Wife Swap episodes, not wearing makeup and training it to suburbia for some Chipotle BECAUSE I’m off today!
I LOVE days off … or do I? There is something really nice about having a day off during the week, and the only thing that messes it up is that “days off” are usually followed by “days on” ie. going back to work :0(
Here’s my list of the best and worst things about having a day off:
Best – You’re not at work!
No hovercraft managers wondering what you’re doing, when you expect to have it done or when you’ll be back from lunch. No need to rise early, shower, put your face on and figure out what to wear, just to ride the hot-ass subway causing you to sweat through your blouse, AND no dealing with annoying coworkers!
Work NEVER seems so bad when you’re off because you’re NOT there! It’s so funny, I’ll come home on a Friday evening thinking, I really don’t know if I can do this for the next 40 years of my life (go to work that is, since with the recession, pensions will become obsolete!) – but by Saturday, it feels nice to have my paycheck in my pocket, and the idea of work doesn’t seem so bad anymore.
Work would be so much more bearable if there was sort of a one-day-on, one-day-off regime … then I’d just continue my cycle of hating it, then not thinking it’s SO bad, in short spurts – better yet, I’ll just work from home!
Worst – My Blackberry
My Blackberry was a really cute idea when I was just downloading apps, answering personal emails and bbming – but now that my company knows that they can reach me any hour of the day, the novelty has worn off.
I love my phone, don’t get me wrong, it keeps me connected … but how much is too much! For example, being off is amazing when I’m just sitting on the couch, blanket across my legs, enjoying a little Perez, next thing you know the vibration of 15 work emails interrupts my paradise. Receiving the emails isn’t what makes it so bad, because I can choose to read or not read, it’s the content that takes it to a whole different level.
Sample emails from employer:
“In sales, when the numbers are down, working extra days are not an option, they’re mandatory. Managers shift your schedules to make this happen.”
“If you’re a veteran, do you really want to close out the month with a rookie beating you in sales, STEP IT UP!”
“Compare your numbers to those of everyone else in the company, how do YOU feel about that?”
These emails would have a not-so-sane person ready to shank their coworkers! It’s no bueno. I understand that sales, specifically commission based sales, is a highly competitive field, but when you’re feeling zen, these emails can really put a damper on your “off day” mood.
A side note about the Blackberry and it’s impeccable ability to keep you connected to those you’d rather avoid, it’s not just your employer who can track you down, but your clients. There’s nothing like hanging ten by the pool and getting an email from your client saying that the phones they ordered from you are malfunctioning, and because they can ONLY work with you, they need you to get on the wire and fix the problems as soon as you can, from wherever you are!
Honestly though, this is all my fault. I should just turn my Crackberry off! Just … One…More … Email…lol
Best – You control your day
and what seems like your destiny! Have you ever noticed how great you feel about life when you don’t have to go into work. It’s like you can do ANYTHING! On days when you can wake up when you please, take a long shower, enjoy a long lunch with friends or NOT shower and veg all day, it seems that your destiny is in your hands.
It’s so interesting the role that the clock plays in your day off/day on schema. When you’re at work, and you look at the clock and then back at the stack of assignments or clients you need to deal with on your desk, and it seems like time couldn’t pass any slower – whereas, when you’re at home on the couch, having woken up at 9 a.m. to enjoy your day of endless possibilities, with the blink of an eye, it’s 9 p.m. and time to wind down for your early morning in the office. Father Time, quit playing with my emotions!
Worst – The day off always ends
It’s Sunday evening, and after a day of grilling and drinking with friends, I settle down on the couch for some evening TV – then something clicks and the anxiety sets in. I know this might sound crazy to some of you, but it’s like after Friday afternoon, your body forgets all the stress associated with work, but by Sunday evening around 7 p.m., it’s like the tide of office politics and stress come crashing back in! It’s tough, because even if you don’t hate your job, there’s always a bit of stress in knowing that your carefree weekend or day off is now over.
My advice – take advantage of your sick leave, and take another day! :0)
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When I embarked on my last job hunt, I got many a word of advice about my Facebook page. “You have to hide all your drunken pictures from college” – “Your privacy settings should be as tight as Fort Knox” – “You should just plain defriend _____ – basically, my friends and family members were suggesting that I put a chastity belt on my Facebooking activities. Who knew that companies were going big brother style on candidates these days? I guess Steve from accounting, the stand-up, go getter and recent college graduate doesn’t look so good bonging beers in Panama, or being found face down, ass up in front of his fraternity house!
So here are a few tips and tricks I’ve picked up for tightening up your “Facebook Personality”:
Clean up your profile
We all know how funny Forgetting Sarah Marshall was, but is it really necessary to post,
Brian: You don’t need to put your P in a V right now.
Peter Bretter: No, I need to B my L on someone’s T’s.
on your Facebook wall??
Off color jokes that made us laugh in college, can unfortunately be the same ones that get us passed over for jobs. My advice would be to take a look at your profile for anything that might be deemed even a little offensive, and delete it. This includes, jokes about your previous sexcapades, pictures where you look comatose and/or hungover, and photos featuring “unsuitable” friends. You don’t want to lose out on your dream job because an employer decides that your friends look douchey.
Check your statuses
It’s ever so tempting, especially when you’re looking for a new job, to post status updates like, “Ughghg my boss smells of mediocrity”, “If my co-worker even breathes near me, I’m going to cold-cock her” or “Can’t wait for my manager to have her spawn so that she can be out of my life for the next 2 months” – BUT DON’T DO IT! It’s like the saying goes, would you date a man who calls his ex-girlfriend a crazy B? Neither would your potential employers! Companies don’t want to hire someone who may mar their image by posting negativity for the world to see.
On the same token, I’d also steer clear of posts about your hangovers, like “Margs to the FACE…definitely can’t make it to work today” or “playing hookie today to get my nails did with the girls”, because failure to show up for work because of personal daliances is not a good look either!
Lock it up
I can totally understand how taxing it would be to go through your entire Facebook life to edit for misunderstandings, so if my previous tips do not interest you or come off as time consuming, my final suggestion would be to simply block your profile. Facebook, with the exception of now making everything you do or show interest in a link to someone or something else, has made the privacy settings pretty easy to maneuver. We all know that Facebook is the medium by which we now know everything about everyone, but it’s helpful to associate yourself with the privacy settings. Employers cannot find you if you make yourself unsearchable, or make certain aspects of your personality visible “only to friends”. My suggestion would be, find a nice, suitable picture of yourself, preferably wearing glasses, because it makes you seem smarter, and leave everything else to the employers imagination. You can always change your privacy settings back later, once you’re in the door!
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Because I had the luxury of taking an extra long weekend for Memorial Day (I had Tuesday off too!), I ended up manning the store this past weekend.
I work in the the heart of Center City, so by 3 p.m. on Friday evening, the Suits have packed up their luxury vehicles, loosened their ties and headed off to the “Shore” – needless to say, there isn’t much going on as far as sales go on the weekend.
This weekend was no different, a customer here, a technical issue there – an all around laid back day, except for 1 customer … he wasn’t bad, so I don’t want to give you that impression, but more interesting – truly indicative of our culture, and how people in the service industry are exposed to a lot more than they used to be.
Here’s the story…
Frank is a local EMS, so if anyone is “overexposed”, it’s him. He came into the store on Saturday to get a phone for his brother. He didn’t know what kind of phone he wanted, so he gave him a call to ask. (On a side note, when he got off the phone with his brother, he shot a quick “i love you”, over the airways before hanging up. I thought this was terribly cute!) I figured out, after chit-chatting with Frank for a bit, that he and his wife are now sole guardians of his 3 younger brothers – needless to say, I was going to hook Frank up with the best deal possible for being such a compassionate guy.
During his visit, Frank got a “call” so he left on an emergency run. When he returned, I asked, “So Frank, what’s the craziest thing you’ve ever seen?” – thinking, if this dude takes care of his 3 younger siblings, it must be hard for him to see a lot of what he sees as an EMS worker.
A big smirk came over Frank’s face, as if to say, wait until you see THIS! He pulled out his iphone and said, “here” – I took it from him. He pulled the tab over, making his screen saver pop up, and in my hands, I had a picture of a man with the left side of his face BLOWN off! Mind you, 2 seconds earlier, I told Frank that I couldn’t do what he does, because I am super squeamish, so you can imagine how I felt after this. Frank tells me that he got a “call” with no other information, and walked in on this man with a hole in his face. And to think, I complain about having to listen to customer’s life stories? Frank – 1, Me – 0.
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and rich, for that matter, because I’d need lots of money or a good financier to do all the things I’d want to do on my “summer off”.
I was reading an article the other day on the Frisky about foreigners, and how they really take advantage of their down time. The article mentioned that most European countries endorse the siesta and shorter work days – so over the course of the day, Europeans probably work about 6 hours, AND get to take naps! Seriously, America, you’ve fallen off!
This is why I think that my desire for summers off doesn’t seem so far fetched. In a time where Americans spend less than 4 hours a day engaged in personal time, ie. Not at work and Not sleeping, I think it’s time that Obama or whoever might take care of these things, makes summers off or a 3 month period of non-work mandatory (since we all can’t be off during the summer, because we’d have no one to scoop our ice cream or rent us jet skis).
So once this proclamation of mandated rest is passed, here’s what I will do with my free time.
Festivals, Festivals and More Festivals
One thing I loved about NYC when I interned there was that every weekend, without fail, there was a street festival spanning about 20 blocks, peddling hand bags, jewelry, music and good food. NYC made me love the idea of the festival, and they have an abundance of them during the summer. From the Big Apple BBQ Fest to the Soho Festival and NYC Pride.
Skip a few miles down the road to Philadelphia, and you have Beer Week in June, which is a festival highlighting stoudts, ales and all around wasted debauchery!
Do I hear you crying for more festivals? How about moving down south for the Chilli cookoff in Richmond, VA; the BBQ Championship and Bluegrass Festival in Charleston, SC; the Jazz Fest in Atlanta; and the Panama City Seafood, Wine and Music Festival?
Work would substantially interfere with my ability to hop from city to city for FestivalPalooza.
I’ve noticed that on the days I have to go in to work, I can’t seem to get out of bed. I roll around for 20 minutes or so hoping that for some reason my office has burned to the ground or I try to concoct an illness (ie. my lower stomach feels a little strange, is that my appendix?? I need to go to the hospital! Thereby missing work). When I finally get up, I stumble around my bedroom for 15 minutes, taking a sitting break every couple of minutes to collect myself because I am clearly still out of it from my nocturnal coma, and before you know it, I’m dragging my butt off to a 9 hour day on the job. Funny thing is, when I am off, my eyes literally pop open at 7:30 a.m., I’m refreshed, and I jump out of bed ready to conquer my day!
With this mentality, I think that my summer off would lead to incredible productivity on my part. I’d read all the books that I’d planned to but never got around to, like Kite Runner, Play like a Man, Win like a Woman, People Magazine and I Hate Other People’s Kids. I’d finish my graduate admissions essays, lose the 10 lbs. I’ve been talking about all winter, I’d start playing the drums again, plan parties and catch up on Maury, Ellen and Oprah!
Crash a few weddings
I have 4 weddings alone to attend from now until October, so just think how many more are actually happening! I mentioned in an earlier post that it’s been quite shocking how many weddings I hear about every week now, so I’m thinking why not embrace it? There’s nothing like an evening of free food, open bars and bad dancing.
I especially enjoy summer weddings because they’re usually outdoors, set on a beautiful backdrop of rolling hills or crashing waves, and people are genuinely up for some bad decisions and a good party!
More Travel
Your 20’s are a pivotal period in your life in which all of your friends set out on their own paths, which sometimes takes them very far away from you – so my next plan would be to take some time to visit. Here’s where being rich would kick in. Flights aren’t as cheap as they used to be, especially considering that all of our oil can currently be ladled out of the Atlantic Ocean, so hopping aboard or even jumping in the car is a little more costly.
Although all my friends seem to be in different places, and sometimes very far from me, it makes for great vacations. From San Francisco and LA, to Dallas, DC and Atlanta, summers would be well spent with good friends in great destinations.
What would you do if you had the entire summer off?
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Holiday Hangover
This Memorial Day Weekend was a lot of fun. There was grilling, drinking, swimming and hanging with old friends – just what I wanted. There’s something about long weekends though – at the beginning of the week you pee yourself with excitement over the impending 3 day Freedom Fest, but afterward, you’re left lamenting your long weekend with a holiday hangover.
For me on this particular holiday, it wasn’t just the fact that the weekend was over, it was more that being away from the city and my job, made me put some things into perspective. I HATE that I think so much, even when I’m supposed to be taking a mini-vacation, but I do it allll the time.
So this weekend, I started to think about my biological clock. No, not the one that tells me that I need to be having children because my aversion to snot and neediness knocks that thought right out of my head, but the thought that my time for certain things is running out.
To give you a better idea of what I’m talking about, I’ll explain my “timeline” to you from my 13-year-old eyes. Back then, I thought that I would be married by 22, living in a suburban love nest by 24, fostering some sort of career in talking (haha yes, I didn’t know what I would be doing, but I knew it would have to have something to do with opening my mouth and voicing my opinions); by 26 I’d have children, and from then on I’d just be riding the wave of domesticity and Barbie-dom – because TRUST, that Bitch has everything!
Check me out now at 25. Slightly engaged in a quarter-life crisis of sorts in relation to my career, but generally enjoying life – but there is still this anxiety in the back of my head that “time is running out”.
I don’t know where I got the idea from as a child that my life needed to be compartmentalized into time periods of accomplishment, but I have to admit that somewhere deep inside, I still feel this way.
For instance, after I realized that I wouldn’t be living in a pink mansion with my plastic boyfriend and sister Skipper, I began to compartmentalize my life in a different manner. Will from “About a Boy” said it best.
“I find the key is to think of a day as units of time, each unit consisting of no more than thirty minutes. Full hours can be a little bit intimidating and most activities take about half an hour. Taking a bath: one unit, watching countdown: one unit, web-based research: two units, exercising: three units, having my hair carefully disheveled: four units. It’s amazing how the day fills up, and I often wonder, to be absolutely honest, if I’d ever have time for a job; how do people cram them in?”
I literally look at my life as a time-line of units. College was a set of units, after which I was supposed to have from 23 – 25 to establish a fabulous career, 25 – 27 was supposed to be spent cultivating that fabulous career and enjoying the perks, ie. fine dining, having my own full bar and/or wine closet, traveling, leisurely lunches, power suits and all around yuppie-dom. However, like I mentioned before, I am 25, and still trying to figure out where to go from here, and my time allotted to do so in this particular section of my life is RUNNING OUT! It sounds crazy, but it’s very similar to when I was a kid and I wanted to be a Pop Star – I thought to myself, if I don’t make it big by 16, then the jig is up! I’d be typecast as played out and too old! I really don’t think that life is like this, because as the saying goes, “it’s never too late for … blah blah blah” but seriously, my mind has me thinking that time is-a-ticking.
I think I have an irrational fear that if something doesn’t come to fruition in the time I’ve allotted for it to, and then that set of accomplishments runs over into the time I’ve allotted to something else, that eventually I’ll just be behind on all fronts.
Thank goodness that this fear has to do with my career, and not my desire for tots, because I’d be looking for an insemination! However irrational my thinking is, I think this sense of urgency, while driving me crazy, actually motivates me to do better for myself.
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Empty Apartments
My neighbors across the hall just moved out, and it was bittersweet. No, not because I knew them, because we’d only spoken in passing once this entire year, but because I knew that they were moving on.
My 24th year lacked a bit of direction, as most do. I knew that I’d laid the foundation for success, ie. college, networking, internships and Black yuppie-dom, but I wasn’t quite sure how I was going to get there – so with all of this uncertainty, moving began to symbolize new beginnings.
Obviously if you’re moving, you have somewhere to go, and when you feel like you don’t know WHERE you’re going, it seems to offer a glimmer of hope.
When the neighbors were moving out, they left their front door open for the cleaning crew. The entire apartment was empty except for a few tubs of paperwork, a lawn chair, a few pots and pans and a fan on the living room floor. So after an entire year of living next to them, and hearing their television blaring on Monday and Wednesday evenings, I could honestly say I knew nothing about them – but I was excited for them.
Where were they going? Did someone get a new job? Were they leaving Philly because their car had been broken into or the transit system sucked (oh wait, that’s me!) Were they having a baby or getting married?
I don’t know where they’re off to or why, but I wish them the best of luck, seriously.
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