Oh, girl. I spent my 20s feverishly running down the wrong road, and my 30s finding my way out of the jungle. Now, at 45, I think I've got a handle on it, and the answer is, "One day at a time." Heh.
It probably sounds much more dramatic than it was. I got my degrees in physics, partly because I liked it, but more because it was the image that I had of myself, the image that I wanted to project to the world. I was successful to a degree, but I was never really happy trying to *be* a physicist. I always felt like an impostor. (Of course, the question I have now is, if I knew then what I know now, would it have been different? Dunno. Doesn't matter. That was then. This is now. I'm happy. Good enough. Not gonna beat my head on that brick wall anymore.)
So, I ran and ran and ran and flailed and flailed and flailed, but finally I had to admit that I was miserable, and I quit my job (I am not making this up: I was working at JPL, doing optics reliability on the fix on the Hubble Space Telescope -- no pressure there, boy) and fled to Oregon to lick my wounds. Stayed there for a couple of years, working tech support for a modem manufacturer. April 19, 1995, a bomb blew up in front of the Murrah Federal building in downtown OKC, and I sat up all night feeling like someone had broken into my home. For the next six months, the feeling got stronger and stronger that I needed to go home, and I was trying, at the time, to learn to trust my instincts, to do what I *knew* was the right thing to do, no matter what, and so I packed everything up and moved home, even though I had sworn for years that I would never do that one thing.
It was the right thing.
Couple of months later, I found the job that I still have to this day. I'm a webmaster at a government research lab, and I *love* what I'm doing, the place where I'm doing it, and, on most days, the people that I'm doing it with. I cut myself a little slack for taking so long to figure it out, because when I was doing all of that flailing, the job title, "webmaster," didn't exist.
More recently, I've made friends with a bunch of bagpipers, and I've gotten myself deeply entrenched in the world of Celtic music. I'm the girl with the camera. I've got half a dozen bands and artists using my pictures on their websites, their CD covers, their promo packages, and I'm constantly working to make it more. I never could have imagined doing anything like this, but it's home to me now, and I'm ridiculously happy here. I'm going to workshops and learning more about the craft, with an eye to picking up some $$$ as a travel photographer. I think I can, I think I can...
As for compromises... well, right now, when I'm not at my day job, I'm working on the photography thing. I travel a *lot* -- I was home a grand total of four weekends from the beginning of March through the end of June. Everything goes into the photography thing. I've let my physical and social infrastructure here in town go largely untended, because I invest everything into this wacky roadshow of a lifestyle. I'm not an on-the-road musician, but I live a lot like one. It's exhausting; I have to take good care of myself to keep from getting run down.
I have no expectations of retirement. I just want to keep on evolving, and if my life to this point has taught me anything, it's that I have no idea what will happen next.
no subject
It probably sounds much more dramatic than it was. I got my degrees in physics, partly because I liked it, but more because it was the image that I had of myself, the image that I wanted to project to the world. I was successful to a degree, but I was never really happy trying to *be* a physicist. I always felt like an impostor. (Of course, the question I have now is, if I knew then what I know now, would it have been different? Dunno. Doesn't matter. That was then. This is now. I'm happy. Good enough. Not gonna beat my head on that brick wall anymore.)
So, I ran and ran and ran and flailed and flailed and flailed, but finally I had to admit that I was miserable, and I quit my job (I am not making this up: I was working at JPL, doing optics reliability on the fix on the Hubble Space Telescope -- no pressure there, boy) and fled to Oregon to lick my wounds. Stayed there for a couple of years, working tech support for a modem manufacturer. April 19, 1995, a bomb blew up in front of the Murrah Federal building in downtown OKC, and I sat up all night feeling like someone had broken into my home. For the next six months, the feeling got stronger and stronger that I needed to go home, and I was trying, at the time, to learn to trust my instincts, to do what I *knew* was the right thing to do, no matter what, and so I packed everything up and moved home, even though I had sworn for years that I would never do that one thing.
It was the right thing.
Couple of months later, I found the job that I still have to this day. I'm a webmaster at a government research lab, and I *love* what I'm doing, the place where I'm doing it, and, on most days, the people that I'm doing it with. I cut myself a little slack for taking so long to figure it out, because when I was doing all of that flailing, the job title, "webmaster," didn't exist.
More recently, I've made friends with a bunch of bagpipers, and I've gotten myself deeply entrenched in the world of Celtic music. I'm the girl with the camera. I've got half a dozen bands and artists using my pictures on their websites, their CD covers, their promo packages, and I'm constantly working to make it more. I never could have imagined doing anything like this, but it's home to me now, and I'm ridiculously happy here. I'm going to workshops and learning more about the craft, with an eye to picking up some $$$ as a travel photographer. I think I can, I think I can...
As for compromises... well, right now, when I'm not at my day job, I'm working on the photography thing. I travel a *lot* -- I was home a grand total of four weekends from the beginning of March through the end of June. Everything goes into the photography thing. I've let my physical and social infrastructure here in town go largely untended, because I invest everything into this wacky roadshow of a lifestyle. I'm not an on-the-road musician, but I live a lot like one. It's exhausting; I have to take good care of myself to keep from getting run down.
I have no expectations of retirement. I just want to keep on evolving, and if my life to this point has taught me anything, it's that I have no idea what will happen next.