A Look At My Career History

Hello, friends! This morning, I was watching a video by one of my favorite YouTube vloggers, Louise Pentland (aka SprinkleofGlitter), and she shared a detailed history of all of the past jobs she held before starting her career as a YouTuber. It made me laugh, and made me a bit nostalgic. I thought it might be fun to share with you guys my own career history (I use that term very loosely), so you can laugh at my many failures!

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Daily Prompt 6/21/2016 | Companion

[In response to The Daily Post’s Daily Prompt 6/21/2016 | Companion]

Things have been a bit strained lately with Kyle and I. We’re okay for the most part, and we’re not fighting or anything, but there are some things we need to talk about, and get out into the open, but we’ve been having a hard time talking it out. As I’ve mentioned before, Kyle has been trying to get into a class at the local community college to get his CDL, but has been having a very hard time. The class costs nearly $5,000, and we do not have the money to just drop on this class. He has tried financial aide, but they don’t offer it for this class. He has tried several different kinds of loans, through the school and several different banks and lenders, but even after trying both my mom and I as co-signers, he was turned down. For everything. He also got pre-hired by one trucking company to try and get a loan, but it was garbage, and did not help at all. And time is running out.

Dream Journal 5/26/16 | Closeout

I was working for a large warehouse-style store, and it was my store’s last day open. Most of the employees had already left, and there were only a handful of us left. My boss, a very tall, attractive, blonde woman, kept coming up to me, interrupting my various tasks, to tell me to get more things done before we closed the doors for good. I was getting angrier and angrier, because she was letting people leave, but giving me more stuff to do. She was also bothering my friend Travis (who I haven’t seen since… 7th grade or so, and doesn’t even live in the same state as me), and he came over to ask me if I wanted to just walk out with him, since it was our last day anyway. I agreed.

As we were walking across the store, which was basically an endless warehouse, I stopped to hug all of my co-workers, and started getting really emotional, talking about how we would never see each other again, and reminiscing about all the good times we had working together. After the 15th or 16th person I stopped to talk to, Travis walked away, and I lost him in the store. I kept walking toward the exit, saying goodbye to people, getting more and more emotional. I stepped outside of the store, into the sunshine, and the street in front of me was completely empty. In the distance, I saw a guy I knew named Elliott (from the show Leverage), and I chased after him because I needed to say goodbye to him. I kept calling his name, but he wouldn’t turn around, and I couldn’t catch up to him.

Suddenly, I was walking, and Travis was walking next to me, and he was angry with me for not giving a hug goodbye. I told him that I was trying to catch up to Elliott to say goodbye to him, and he stopped walking, and told me Elliott was a jerk. I ignored him and kept walking, and he started calling after me.

And then I woke up.

Daily Prompt 5/24/2016 | Quarter-Life Crisis

In response to The Daily Post’s Daily Prompt | Phase

I am 26 years 0 months 27 days old.
I am 312 months 27 days old.
I am 1360 weeks 4 days old.
I am 9,524 days old.
I am 228,576 hours old.
I am 13,714,560 minutes old.
I am 822,873,600 seconds old… well, roughly.

I am closer to 30 than I am to 20, and while I have been for over a year, technically, it is really just starting to hit me now. I’m at the age now where, not only have many of my friends graduated with a 4-year degree from college, but some now also have Master’s degrees. Many of my friends have reached their goals as graduates, and go to their dream jobs (or something close to it, at least), and make money, and then go home to their house, that they own, and drink wine, while watching Netflix… or whatever it is functioning adults do. Even if they didn’t go to, or graduate from, college… everyone seems to be doing better than me in life. Everyone. Because of this, I’ve become withdrawn, bitter, and angry. I’m sure people are tired of my whining and complaining, since the advice and tough love that I used to receive from friends and loved ones has been replaced by absolute silence. But just for fun, let’s reach into my mind for a moment.

I have no degree, but still owe my old college money, 7 years later.
I have no job (granted, that’s because I stay home with my son, but before that, it was endless, dead end jobs).
I have no house, and constantly get stuck renting horrible places, because that is all I can afford, because of the previous two things.
I have no car, I don’t even have a license. This makes remedying ANY of the precious three things much more difficult.

I am going nowhere. I am getting older, and my life is going absolutely nowhere. I had such high hopes for myself when I was younger, and everything went wrong. For a long time, I blamed everything falling apart on other people/things. I was in such a hurry to grow up, and prove that I was an adult, that I forgot that I was just a stupid, broke kid. I refused to accept help, or listen to reason, because I wanted people to think I had it all under control. But I didn’t.

I had to drop out of college after one (terrible) year because I could no longer afford it. I thought I had my student loan situation handled, but I didn’t, and it all fell through. My mom gave me a loan to cover my first semester so that I would be able to finish the year, but then I couldn’t pay for my second semester. I still owe both my mom, and the school, money. As I said… it has been 7 years, and thanks to my track record of moving every year, and landing nothing but minimum wage jobs, I haven’t been able to make a dent in that debt. I hadn’t gone to school out of the country, to go to school with my then boyfriend, and get away from my family, I could have gone to the local community college, and probably have graduated. I could have gotten my degree, and maybe saved some money by staying at home, and gotten my own place.

Everything that I have done in my adult life, I’ve done for the wrong reasons. For love, for a guy, for convenience… I never thought of the consequences of any of my actions, and now I am stuck dealing with all of them at once, at a stage in my life when I should have my shit at least somewhat together. I wanted to grow up too fast, and now I’m stuck feeling like a helpless child, unable to move forward with my life because I don’t have any of the means to do so.

I am tired of it. Despite my thirst for even a shred of independence, I am always stuck relying on other people just to survive. To help bring me to work, to help bring me to the store, to help me with money when shit goes wrong, to share my space and help me pay the bills because minimum wage just doesn’t cover it, even in a slum. I’ve had to rely on other people throughout my entire adult life, up to this point, and I am ashamed. I have a son now, and while he depends on me 100%, I still depend on everyone around me. I don’t want him growing up knowing that his mother was useless. That she never finished college, and never had a decent job, and never did anything important with her life. And I want so much more for him, so he does not turn out like me, but how do you instill those values in your child, when you are hardly an example yourself?

I try to live without regrets, but when it comes down to it, I feel like I regret everything. I am torn between wishing I could have done everything differently, and wishing I had done nothing differently, because it would have changed my present 110%. Would my life be better? Would it be worse? Would I even be alive?

I don’t sleep anymore. When I do sleep, I hardly dream. I am always tired, despite doing nothing with my life, and I am always sad. I am sad, and angry, and tired. Sometimes, I wonder why I even bother getting out of bed. Everything feels pointless. And I don’t know what to do about any of it. I am stuck.

Is this what they call a quarter-life crisis? Or is this an existential crisis? Either way, it sucks.

Thanks for reading, friends.

Jan

Don’t Kick Me When I’m Down

Hello, friends! Liam and I are feeling much better as of yesterday, as we finally slept (mostly) through the night! He did wake up 4 times, all before 1:30 in the morning, but he slept until 7:30. His cough is gone, and he is much less fussy, and much more energetic, than he has been in over a week. I’m glad the antibiotics kicked in quickly! We seem to be in the middle of a developmental leap, as he has been increasingly clingy the last few days, add this to his teething, and it has been a bit frustrating not being able to do anything during the day. My apartment is a mess, and now that I’m feeling better, all I want to do is clean, but he just won’t let me.

Kyle still hasn’t been able to find a new job, and our funds are starting to run low. His department at his one remaining job decided to cut his department’s hours, and he has only been working 2-3 days a week, which is nowhere near enough to pay our rent, let alone the rest of our bills. I am trying to stay positive, but things are starting to get tight, and I am starting to panic a little. He’s been filling out applications every day, but hasn’t heard anything back from anyone. I filed an application for EBT yesterday, and tomorrow I will go to the WIC office and get back on that. We had both up until Kyle got his job at the Walmart DC, but we lost them when he was hired. We more than qualify for assistance now that they have (wrongfully) fired him.

Things have been frustrating here. Very frustrating. I am exhausted, and I have been getting migraines again, most likely triggered by my blood pressure, which I am willing to bet is higher than normal. And stress.

Also, my phone is missing. Liam was playing with it this morning, as he normally does, and now it is gone. I made the mistake of allowing him to play with it, since he no longer puts electronics in his mouth. I have been looking for it all day, but really started tearing the apartment apart an hour ago, while he was eating dinner, to try and find it. I’ve looked in all his usual hiding places (under my desk, under the kitchen table, in the shoes, etc.), but I can’t find it anywhere. Oh, and of course, it is on silent. Grr.

In other news, I have been playing the game Stardew Valley quite a bit lately in my free time. Kyle bought it for me for our anniversary last month, and I am completely addicted to it. I’ll write up a longer review later when I have time. I also have 4 dream journal entries, and 3 blog ideas, that I need to write out. I just never have a second to get on the computer anymore, unless Liam is sleeping, in which case, I am either bathing myself, or cleaning the apartment. Blogging, Twitter, Facebook, etc., have all taken a backseat to life. I feel like I’ve missed out on so much of everything. It has been nice, in a way, having Kyle home, as it has freed me up a bit… but it comes at a cost, obviously.

That’s it for now. Thank you to everyone for all the well wishes and kind words. I’ve missed you guys, and I’m sorry I haven’t been active lately. I have SO many posts to read and catch up on! I hope to be back soon.

Thanks for reading, friends!

Jan

Another Quick Update

Ugh.

Liam is still sick. I haven’t slept in over a week, and I am miserable. I was finally able to bring him to the clinic today, and found out that he has a double ear infection and a post-nasal drip. Fantastic. Got some antibiotics.

Kyle has been applying to a dozen jobs a day since getting fired, but they are all dead ends, and are going nowhere. He has his second job still, but his department’s hours got cut, and we can’t live off of his 12 hours a week.

Family drama. Kyle’s mom was just diagnosed with clinical depression, which she has been struggling with, and has openly talked to us all about. We all love and support her, and she knows that. After getting on medication, Kyle’s grandmother (yep, same one I’ve written about before) took it upon herself to group message myself, and both of Kyle’s sisters, on Facebook, telling us that we need to “behave”, and lecturing us about this disease. We are all grown adults, who have each struggled with our own demons and darkness, and she really struck a nerve with all of us. But that’s just what she does.

So, yeah. That’s my life at the moment. I’m sorry that I have been absent. I have been having a hard time with… everything. How are you all? Did you have a nice Easter? We don’t really celebrate, but we went to Kyle’s mom’s and Liam had an indoor Easter egg hunt (it was raining). Fun times.

Jan

Very Quick Update

Hey guys, I’m still alive, I promise. Life has just been pretty crazy the last week and a half.

Kyle lost his job. So there’s that.
All 3 of us have some horrible plague that we most likely picked up from a sick little girl at the mall play area (who brings their sick child to an indoor play area?!). So I haven’t been eating or sleeping at all, and my kid is… just… please, help me.
I’ve lost 4.5 pounds in 3 days. Sickness.

Ugh.

That’s it. Back to the couch.

Jan

Daily Prompt 2/15/2016 | Working For Free

The Daily Post’s Daily Prompt 2/15/2016 | Money for Nothing

“If you’re like most of us, you need to earn money by working for a living. Describe your ultimate job. If you’re in your dream job, tell us all about it — what is it that you love? What fulfills you? If you’re not in your dream job, describe for us what your ultimate job would be.”

My current job title is Super Mom… you may have also heard of the titles Stay-at-Home Mom, or SAHM. Those are the same thing. It’s a pretty demanding job, and includes early mornings, late nights, mandatory overtime, bio-hazardous waste cleanup, and being Chef de Cuisine, mastering the crafts of mac ‘n cheese, broccoli and cheese omelettes, and oatmeal. Did I mention that I perform these various tasks with absolutely no pay? It’s true. My bank account is about as empty as it comes. And I’m okay with that.

I always knew that I wanted to be a mother, and I even knew that I wanted to have my first child when I was 24 years old, which I did. However, I always thought that I would have had my degree, a house, and decent income by 24 years old as well… and that didn’t happen.

I went to school to study Psychology, something that I have been passionate about since elementary school. I planned to work with children and teenagers in a school setting, or even as a social worker for the state, but specifically for lower income families. Maybe even start my own practice, where people pay only what they can afford. Growing up, I had a hard life. Sure, it could have been worse, but it was hard for me. I dealt with divorce, abuse, poverty, and witnessing my mom’s abuse. It took it’s toll on me, and I ended up developing some severe self-esteem issues by the time I was in elementary school, which carried into middle school, where my grades started suffering, and I developed some self-abusive habits, which worsened as I entered high school. In high school, I made some choices that I wish I hadn’t, and let people take advantage of me. I also came very close to losing someone very close to me to suicide, who ended up making it through, but blamed me for it, and turned my friends against me.

The reason I am telling you all of this is because I want to share with you how helpless and alone I felt. My school did not have any qualified counselors that I could speak to, and I wasn’t close enough with any of my teachers to let them into my life. My mom did not have any sort of insurance, and even though she knew about my issues, she couldn’t afford to get me the help that I needed. I suffered in silence, and my relationships with everyone around me crumbled. I first attempted suicide at 15 years old, then again at 16. I survived, but what if I hadn’t?

I don’t know how my life would be different if I had gotten the help that I needed, and still need, but I feel like I would be more comfortable in my own skin, and would know a bit more about why I am the way I am, and feel the way I feel. Being a teenager is hard, and there is a lot more going on than most would lead you to know. It is important to talk about issues, otherwise they can eat you away from the inside. I needed someone to talk to during those years, and I had no one, and it damaged me. Lower income families, and the children within them, are especially susceptible to bullying, self-esteem issues, and abuse, and help for these kids is not always available, or affordable. I want to change that.

I’ve had a lot of setbacks with school, mostly financial, but I still hold onto that dream. I want to make a difference, to help people, and I truly believe that I will someday.

Thank you for reading, friends.

Jan