Sweet Mediocrity

I’ve been in my office, sitting at my desk for just over a half hour today. That’s all the time it took for me to fire off a snarky, yet professional, email to the one guy giving me grief. And my boss asked me how getting into grad school was going.

Not well, I told him, renewing my mourning for my low GRE scores and huge lack of confidence.

“How am I going to be incredible if I don’t get into grad school?” I thought to myself one more time.

See, I have this new great fear in my life: being mediocre. But this comes from a very valid source. I was listening to Dr. Laura, probably about a year ago, and she said something to a desperate woman who was pushing 30 and single. (You guys can rail on me about Dr. Laura later; it’s not really the point of this story.) The woman was complaining that she couldn’t get a date with an incredible guy; that the only ones left lived with their mamas and had dead-end jobs. Dr. Laura asked the woman what she was doing to be incredible herself. Turned out the woman lived with HER mama and had her own dead-end job. Therefore, my little brain said, the key to finding an incredible man who’ll stick around is to BE an incredible woman.

Hence, grad school. Which is proving difficult to get into. Le sigh. This difficulty is simply reaffirming to my already poor self-esteem that I’m doomed to be mediocre.

So then, I think, what if I settled for interesting. I could be an interesting person, and therefore attract the interesting people.

Sadly, I’m already certain I’m a boring person. I simply never have anything intelligent to say. And I’m just awful at small talk. I’ve bored away one incredible guy and I’m pretty positive I’m currently boring away another. How dreadful to lose people because they are bored to tears when they talk to you or spend any amount of time with you? Ugh! I cannot live like this!

People also do not find insecurity to be interesting, either. I don’t understand this. As a whole, people don’t like the cocky, the over-confident, the braggart. But they don’t like the person that honestly expresses their doubts in themselves or says “I think I’m boring’ out loud.

What’s a mediocre girl to do?!

In what seems to be a hugely vain attempt at killing the mediocrity monster, I’ve joined a women’s hockey team. Why hockey, you ask? Well, because a very interesting, horrifically incredible friend of mine asked me to join. And I thought, hey, she’s amazing and plays hockey, so this could be a route to awesomeness. Unfortunately, the Good Lord did not bless me with natural hockey skills, and the general consensus is it takes about a year to hold one’s own on a hockey rink. Double le sigh.

Since it appears there is not a swift route to incredibility, I suppose I shall try the grad school thing again, resubmit my application, beg on my knees for letters of recommendation, and pray I actually get a good GRE score this time. I sorely wish I hadn’t convinced myself that grad school is the sure road to awesomeness and confidence. But, at least I’ll feel like I’m moving forward, working toward something, and not simply existing in this world.

Lunch.

I just returned to work after the most awkward lunch of my life

Seriously awkward.

Enjoying the high of my new job, and a week gone well, I decided to treat myself to some awesome Greek food from my favorite little hole-in-the-wall joint. I snag my GRE study book off my desk and cruise on down there.

Not long after placing my order, and finding a booth along one pistachio-colored wall in the almost-tacky joint, a family of three sat at the booth next to mine. The place was mostly empty, so the fact that they sat as close as they could to me caught my attention.

Shrugging it off, I opened my book and started reading about reading comprehension passages while the family next to me engaged in soft conversation. The three of them obviously got along well, the parents asking the child about work and school. He was older, twenty-something, maybe thirty.

My food arrived to my table, I pushed the book to the side to be able to read while I ate. And then the awkwardness happened.

“We brought you to lunch to ask you a very personal question,” I overheard the mother say.

Of course, I stopped reading, didn’t move, and listened. Yes, I eavesdrop. Like a bandit. Don’t talk about anything you don’t want me to hear and blog about when I’m in the room. Nothing is sacred.

“Your father and I want to know why you haven’t been going to church since January.

Ooof. Awkward.

The poor son hesitated; I could almost hear the gears in his head coming up with an acceptable answer. You know, one of those responses that is vague enough to appease your mother, or at least to make her stop asking questions. Something that would hint that maybe, eventually, he’d do what she wanted. Before the poor guy could answer, Mom interjected, “We think your wife needs a therapist, and that’s why you’ve been missing church.”

WOW.

My chin still has a bruise on it from hitting the floor.

I think the number one and number two things a mother has no business in are her son’s church habits, and the sanity of his wife.

The son mumbled something, the dad noticed I had stopped reading and eating and that I was sitting on bated breath waiting for the reply. The conversation was then dropped to a level I couldn’t hear.

Sad.

I guess I don’t understand the stigma of church. I was raised in an open-minded, accepting household where my brother and I could make our own decisions about church. He and I have nearly opposite views on the subject, but no one seems to care. We follow our own happiness in the matter. We’re still close and talk about pretty much everything.

I can’t help but feel bad for that poor guy. He was obviously old enough to make his own decisions, but his parents felt they had the right and the power to make him do what they thought was right.

The part that really slays me though, is mentioning that the wife needed a therapist. Of course she’s nuts! She doesn’t go to church!

I often wonder if there’s this much pressure and ridiculousness about religion outside of Utah. Why do parents tell their kids they just want them to be happy, but when it comes down to it, that happiness has to be just a certain way?

I don’t think I’m bitter toward the Church, but as I get older, and as I hear about more instances like this, it’s getting harder to stay open-minded.

The New Pursuit

Four days ago, I set out to write a creative piece every day of the year. And, granted, it’s only been four days, and I’m honestly not looking forward to tomorrow’s project (Write a letter to someone you went to elementary school with. How in the world am I supposed to make that interesting?). But I’m loving it. And producing some very terrible writing and, I’m sure, a hundred typos a day.

But loving it!

I start thinking about the next topic and how to attack it as soon as I post the last one. I ponder it all day and all night long. It makes my dead-end job just a little more delightful and my day seem a bit productive. I get a huge sense of accomplishment when I’ve finished a piece, read it over, and slapped it on the webpage. I’m sure very few people actually read the darn thing, but I don’t care. It’s for me, not for them.

My only worry is that I won’t be this gung-ho about it in a week. Or in two. Or a month. I’ve never finished a year-long commitment in my life. Or that I’ll go on vacation and come back and never catch up again. Or never even start again after I’m out of town. That’s what happened with my wonderful workout regiment. Went wheelin’, came home, never ran again, gained 20 pounds. Oops.

This one feels different, though. Just a little. I’ve always loved to write, but the biggest challenge is never having anything to write about. With my grand list of topics (crossing them off one by one, just like Earl), I’m more than armed for the task.

2010

Here we are again, ringing in a new year, and along with that come the tradition of making a resolution that you’re 98% sure you’re not going to keep anyway. Or proclamations of “this is the year. This is MY year…”

I don’t think I’m going to do that this year. I did that last year, and to be honest, 2009 didn’t end up nearly as glorious as I had planned. True, I wrapped up my degree, something I thought I’d never do, paid off my Jeep and cleared up all my debt, which just feels good, and kept myself surrounded by amazing people who love me.

What I didn’t do was land that job of my dreams. And, I’ll admit, the search is making me weary. I refuse to believe I am stuck in a job that makes me wonder what the point of existance is everytime I walk in the office door. I flat out refuse to stay at a job just for the paycheck. There’s gotta be something out there that makes me feel like a productive member of society and less like a glorified answering machine.

I didn’t buy a house. This is something I really want for myself. My own house. A place where I can paint the walls, I can tear out a wall if I want, I can pound whatever nails in the walls I want. My own place. How would it be to have need of a lawn mower? The American Dream. I want it.

I also didn’t get married. I know, so pathetic and cliched, and I’ll admit, I hate it myself. And if someone else said those words to me, I’d rip their head off and give them a massive lecture about how there’s much more to life than getting married, that the key to success in anything is to be happy as an individual, and satisfied with yourself as a person. And I am. I’m happy. I have a good life. I just need to change my outlook, plan, expectations. Ten years ago, I had a different plan. Married by 25, have my 2.3 children by 30, be a stay-at-home writer with a brilliant online career, and live happily ever after. I guess I built these expectations based on my mom’s path. She was married by 21, had Kid#1 at 25, and Kid#2 at 29. (29 years and 279 days. I figured this out because on June 5th, 2010, I will be exactly half of my mother’s age. I think we’ll have a party of some sort. Seems like an occasion to celebrate something.) So, I guess it’s natural to feel disappointed.

2010 will be the year I turn 30. And I don’t have my children. I don’t have the job to support them if I did. I don’t own a home. I don’t have that husband that loves me no matter how infuriating I am. I have a cat. I rent (albeit a freaking cool apartment). I have a passion for words that I can’t use. But, that’s fine. It’s not a time for a resolution, or a promise that this is the year to make drastic changes. Change will come as it’s meant to. This is the year for different expectations. Nothing more.