Quaking

I've just done something. I'm hoping it was the right thing, but somehow doubting that anything will come of it.

For all my bitching and moaning a couple of months back, I have not left my job. I'm still there and I'm still miserable, most of the time. But tonight, in spite of the fact that I only got home at about 10, I have taken a step in what I hope is the direction of the door. I've actually gotten around to listing some vintage-related things for sale. And oh, god, I hope they sell. Because not only do I need the money, I need the out.

I've been clinging to a version of this particular dream for a little while now, and have taken a few steps along the path to realising it, without getting too bored. That's unusual for me, I have to be honest. For all the dreams I've had along the way, I've never really wanted to see any of them through. Not properly. It might be that my sister-in-law-of-sorts is also treading down a similar path with me this time that is driving it. Or maybe it's just that I'm finally finding something that I feel passionate enough about. Who can tell? And who on earth would have thought that it would have anything to do with clothing, if it is? That the sartorial failure would want to build a career around this?

But there again, it's not fashions for the now - it's fashion for way back then. So I guess it works for me, given that I'm something of a history nerd.

So here's crossing fingers, toes, eyes, ankles, knees, anything else I can manage to get across something else, that there are people out there who are interested in what I'm selling, and that they actually buy it. Because I want out.

Wanted: Forward impetus

I'm not sure what it is about me that makes me so restless, but I'm currently having a serious bout of career blues. I'm bored senseless at work most of the time, and sick of spending my nights studying to try and get somewhere else. I think it might really just be the onset of a Melbourne winter, and it being just on a year now since I left London. I think I'm entitled to a little angst, to be honest.

So, anyone who isn't prepared for a bit of self-pitying moaning, look away now. I promise that the next post will be more upbeat. Probably.

Everyone who hears about my current study plan gives such a negative response that I've started to believe them. What started out seeming like a great career move for me - get to read kids books without anyone looking at me strangely, get 10 weeks holiday a year, don't need to have the greatest attention to detail - is becoming more and more like something that I will end up hating. Sounds like a familiar tale, to tell the truth. So what do I do about it all? Do I keep studying, in hopes that it works out OK in the long run? Or do I call it quits now and find whatever it is that I'm really supposed to do? Knuckle down, rent a cottage somewhere with no distractions, and actually finish writing any one of the four or so books that I have in various stages of completion so that I can attempt to get them published? Chuck everything in and just work as a temp until I find myself a career that fits? Switch out of my current job into something similar that at least pays better? Or find myself a rich man and live a life of ease and luxury on someone else's dollar? Perhaps hold off and attempt to score myself a job in academia?

That's always been the problem with me and careers, though. There's always been too many choices on the table, and not enough will to narrow it down. Too much dreaming, not enough reality. Not to mention not enough specificity in my skill base. Jack of all trades, master of none. The only thing I know for sure is that I need to make some kind of change. My current work is driving me to distraction with the lack of challenge, and that's without factoring in the monumental levels of stupidity in the people I deal with on a daily basis, from the co-worker who is unable to shut the fridge door (and then unable to hear the annoying beep it makes when she does this), to the nut job residents of the estate, or the lazy arse council workers who take three months to act on something, but still manage an appropriately surprised voice every time you talk to them.

I have to find myself a grown up mature job sometime soon, though. It's too early for a mid-life crisis, and too late for me to be still in kidulthood. I'm a thirty-something. Surely I should be settled in some area of my life by now, rather than in an eternal state of limbo. But no. I'm still in exactly the same position I was in six years ago. And three years before that. And god knows how many years before that. Dear god, I need momentum. Someone give me a shove, please...

When I grow up...

When you're a kid, everybody asks you what you want to be when you grow up. Fireman, astronaut, princess, - they rank high on plenty of kids lists, I'm sure. But I never really wanted any of those things. Sure, I liked the idea of being a hero, or of having people running around having to do exactly what I, beautiful beyond belief, wanted them to. But my aim never seemed to be as fantastical as all of that. For a long time, I wanted to be an author. This was back in the days when I actually finished the stories I started (although, based on evidence found in several exercise books buried deep in cupboards when helping my parents move from the family home this month, I clearly didn't finish them all then, either). Of course, those stories ran to 10 pages of illustrated drama - my all time favourite is titled "Murder in the Dark", written at age 10, and featuring dripping knives, things that go bang, and finishing with an arrest after the gruesome death scene - but hey, for a kid, they were master pieces. I was convinced that I would be published.

Once I'd given up on that dream, or at least pushed it further back in my mind, I wanted to be in the Air Force. Blame it on being made to watch The Right Stuff and Top Gun too many times, but I wanted to be a fighter pilot. I had visions of me flying all over the world, doing aerobatics, being an ace like the ones I saw in movies. Reality put paid to that dream when I got to about 16. As an unfit, lazy female, there was no way I was ever going to be put in charge of several million dollars worth of fighter plane. If I was lucky, they'd let me fly a cargo plane; women didn't get to do combat operations. And thank god for that, is all I can say, because the thought now of being in that situation is enough to scare the pants off me.

I think the last dream I had was to be a journalist; yes, the shy kid in the corner who has barely met a deadline in her life and certainly never voluntarily asked a question, you'd make a fine member of the press. One of my class mates did follow this road, into TV news. The other day I saw her interviewing the former deputy principal of my school and having to criticise her; it must have been a kind of bittersweet moment for both.

Notice, though, when asked what you want to be, it's always a job. No kid ever says they want to grow up to be kind, or funny, or anything that involves a personality trait. Maybe I'm noticing this because I'm evaluating what I want to be when I finally finish growing up - because 30 clearly isn't grown up enough. What will I end up being? I'm yet to settle on a dream that fits, but I don't want to resign myself to the idea that I will never find myself somewhere that is truly and completely me. Yes, I enjoy my current job most of the time. I could do without the whinging of a colleague, without the stupidity of people, but as far as jobs go, it's not bad. Somewhere in London, L is picking herself up off the floor at me saying that a job isn't bad. But I conceded long ago that work is a necessity; it just could be more...me.

So the search continues. My recent run-in with writing a thesis has put academia firmly out of my head. I've tried architecture and interior design with some success, but little joy. So the question remains; when I grow up, what will I be? If I figure it out, I'll let you know...