I want a break. Not a 4-day weekend-get-out-of-town-thing, I mean a real break. I want to take four months off of worrying about finding a job or having a paycheck. Why? Because I have no idea what to do with the rest of my life and I’m tired. I’m physically tired, but that’s because I am emotionally drained. I have been for several years, which is why I’m in therapy. While that’s helped considerably, the reality is that I don’t know how much I have left in me or a better description is probably how much I can muster up from my external environment because the internal one was completely depleted a couple of years ago.
For a long time, even before I got laid off from my job, I’ve been wondering what I should do with my life. I’m right in the middle of middle-age and still don’t know who the hell I really am. I have allowed society and my upbringing to dictate everything to me. I have an overdeveloped sense of responsibility, so overdeveloped that it has damaged me mentally, perhaps so badly that it’s not repairable. This means that I’m supposed to get a job and be a good little girl. Show up for my appointments, realize how my actions affect others, pay my bills on time, keep a good credit score, learn how to cook, yada, yada, yada.
I found a job description that excited me. It was an opportunity to work in architecture, but in a role different than a designer or an architect (I’m sorry architecture profession, but those are two different things). It appeared to combine my leadership skills and strengths with my knowledge of architecture and desire to bring a team of people together. It requires a lot of experience and knowledge that I just don’t have. I did apply, it’s not a dead idea yet, but might as well be. But what I liked about finding that description was the fact that I did get excited about something new. However, the company contact I was speaking with mentioned they received my resume and that they have architect and senior architect positions open as well and my emotions plummeted. I don’t see how I can trust another employer to tell me that I will have the ability to be involved in the whole project, including the up-front stuff (client programming, design, concepts) when what they really want is just someone to get the technical stuff all gathered up and executed. And here’s the thing about that role, which I’ve been stuck in for the last 4.5 years, I’m bad at it. Well, actually I can be really good at but the fact is I really don’t give a rat’s ass if the flashing is done correctly. Ok – that might be an exaggeration (not the I’m-good-at-it part, just the I-don’t-care-part), but it does speak to how I’m feeling about my chosen career right now.
I can do a lot of things and be just fine at them. Those career tests that they give you in high school that are supposed to help you decided what you’re good at? Yeah, my results said I could do anything I wanted. I’m not making that up. The world was my oyster, wide-open, endless possibilities. I don’t want some stupid test telling me what I should do, but 25 years later I still don’t have any good ideas, just a lot of college loans to pay off.
Here’s what I know:
- I like to dress up for work.
- I like feeling like a “professional” (insert your interpretation of that here)
- I like doing something a bit different each day (DMV clerk is out of the question)
- I like working on something for as long as I feel like working on it, then moving to another task. For example, I might work on researching windows for one project for 2 hrs, then drafting wall sections the rest of the day on a different project. But let’s be honest, it’d be great if I could just jump around like cricket whenever I wanted to.
- I love fashion, but I think a job in the fashion design world would be much worse than architecture.
- I would like to do something that makes people’s lives a little better.
- I NEED to make a difference.
- I would like to be in front of people (classrooms, speaker, the boss, etc…)
- I believe I have a natural leadership ability that has only improved with a better understanding of myself and humans in general.
- I like to read and research on topics related to human interest or how design affects humans. I do not like to research the difference between metal panels.
- I believe I would like some travel in my job – say 30% of the time I’m out of the office.
- I want to work with other people who like to dress up for work and show up when business begins. I dislike working with people who just wander in an hour after the posted business hours and think that it’s ok to do so. This affects the team we work with (re-read the aforementioned overdeveloped sense of responsibility statement above.)
I’m still focusing on the architectural world for now, but I’m certainly open to opportunities that would allow me fulfill at least a few of these likes. It’d be nice to go to work 5 days a week and now that 3 of those would be decent days instead of 4 of them being pretty crappy
