Chapter 96: Quarter Century is Harder Than It Looks

I made a mistake. It was a while ago, about a month now. I don’t know if it can really be construed as a mistake since I didn’t know that I had made it, I thought I was doing the job right. I had to get a form from an employee and then delete one of her dependants. At the time it didn’t cross my mind that I had to give the form to my boss, and it also didn’t occur to me, though in retrospect it should have, that I should inform the payroll person, who in fact is not the same as it was a month ago.
I feel horrible about this mistake and I know that my boss is upset with me. I just spent my lunch hour developing an ulcer. I know that I probably shouldn’t be as paranoid as I am, but I can’t help it, after seeing how quickly Grouchy was out of here, how can I not be paranoid? I just feel like I make a lot of mistakes in this job, and considering how little work I actually do it just seems to be magnified. Then I come back to work from lunch and I sit at my desk, with absolutely nothing to do and my boss not yet back. Even when she does come back I’ll be too afraid to approach her. Added to that I’ve been super sensitive lately…I mean, I understand that all of what I’ve already said can be lumped in with my over sensitivity.
I miss Ducky…sorry I figured that I’d just throw in other things that I’m upset about. I got the first disc of the seventh season of Gilmore Girls and have slowly been watching it and I’m disappointed, I don’t like it as much as I remember liking it, but I’ll keep watching because I have to know how the show ends. I have cramps; I couldn’t find my keys this morning and today is one of those days when I hate my job. It’s just one of those days when I’m just sitting here, except that today is worse because I’m sitting here waiting for my manager to call me in and have a chat about our communication. Maybe this isn’t the kind of job for me; maybe this isn’t something I’m going to be good at because I really feel like I haven’t done a whole lot right. I wouldn’t want to go back to training, but I don’t know if this is what I’m supposed to be doing. I do like the perks to the job, I like the people, I love the hours, but maybe that’s not what life is all about.
Last night when I was driving to the grocery store a thought came to me, I thought about what it is that I really enjoy doing, and that would be writing. I may not be good at it, but I enjoy it. I mean, I’m always writing at work, almost on a daily basis I’m coming up with more B.S. to put up on my blog, or to hopefully one day publish as a book. So last night I thought to myself that a long time ago I should have changed my major to Journalism. I had thought about doing it once, and then thought about getting a Master’s degree in it, but I didn’t, and I don’t know why I didn’t, I just know I didn’t. So maybe it’s time to look at that as an option again. Maybe take a few journalism courses
Sometimes I wish I could do life over, knowing what I know now. For example, I wouldn’t have continued to pursue a degree in Sociology, knowing that it would have led to 4 and half months as a cashier 13 months as a trainer and 4 months as a Labrador retriever. Maybe I would have been more willing to stick it out as an education major, or maybe I would have gone into accounting. If I could go all the way back to the beginning I think I would have tried to have a dream of becoming something, because when I think about it I didn’t really have anything to begin with. I was doomed from the start. You know what else I would do? I would have eaten my vegetables, brushed my teeth like my mom told me to, and I wouldn’t have wasted so much money on things that didn’t matter.
The whole concept doesn’t seem so odd to me, when I was younger I had a very Twilight Zone brain. I imagined that we were all just babies, sound asleep and each night we would dream our lives through all the way to death, and when we died we actually woke up to be babies again, I can’t remember if I thought we would have a recollection of our dreams, but I just kept waiting to wake up some morning, as a baby, and that everything about my life had just been a dream. Odd thought I know, but this is how my brain worked. Part of me kind of wishes it were true.