the adventures of pamalicious

I have been humming the tune from Mahogany lately because it pretty much sums up how I feel sometimes.  I have no idea where I am going.  I never have.  I just…go. 

It has started to move to the forefront of my mind again because of this college education I’m acquiring.  There is going to be more and more conversation about what exactly do I plan to DO with these degrees because by the time I finish up next winter - I will have three.  As I said before I began this journey, I DON’T KNOW.

Though I won’t sit here at 41 1/2 and ‘blame’ my parents - there was a fatal flaw that came from my upbringing that has impacted all of my siblings.  We were not taught or guided to KNOW something to do.  We were not allowed to work when we were younger, we went to school to get the academia, college was not pushed and our parents must have just assumed that (1) we would go into the family business and (2) that we would know what we wanted to do.  However, there was no nurturing of the things we liked.  There was this negative connotation about work and I don’t know where it all fell through the cracks, but here we are all adults and we have no real sense of career - - only job and barely that.

I would LOVE to have a passion for something like Caun has or my other friend who motivationally speaks.  Nothing moves me like that. I know some things I would enjoy and I know some atmospheres that I think I would thrive in - but none of it is keeping me up at night in anticipation.  I fear I’ll be a Masters holding..Secretary.  Not even an executive one at that!

I think I need some career counseling - to sit down with someone and pinpoint my strengths and weaknesses’s and take it from there.  I already know that all of my strengths are people oriented and abstract to the point that they probably don’t MAKE ANY MONEY! The skills I ultimately have are not school taught - they are just..me. 

Then I got this whole ‘fear’ thing going.  It stops me at the most inopportune times.  I never really feel qualified in the work place.  I’m become so complacent in the role I am in - with it’s freedoms and all my vacation time that moving to a more structured environment frightens me.  Do I even have the skills for a ‘real’ office?  I need to shore up my Microsoft skills, I might need some new clothes - you see how I burden my own self down?

So I don’t know.  I made a list of the things I like to do in my everyday life and things that truly interest me and I think I should now look to see how they parlay into jobs.  Organizational Management is a great subject and it has intrigued me to no end. I really feel like I could manage someone in a creative small atmosphere.  Event planning works for me, Team Building interests me a lot, Life coaching intrigues me, working in a college atmosphere would interest me, even a lower level school like the media specialist or something, lol Kindergarten is a nice place to be creatively, front office dealing with people works, something grass roots works.  an interesting project as a project manager would stir me a bit.

The thing is - I am just as comfortable being a wife and a mother and living this particular life that I live. I fill it with the oddest things and projects and internet, and reading and blogging and now I will have a new place to decorate and have a couple of parties in.  My life is on cruise control and a certain part of me doesn’t see anything wrong with that - I feel happy YET I feel like I should be doing more and I should be feeling like I should be doing more.  I don’t want my intelligence to get stale and I don’t want to be looked at as this complacent woman who is in her 40’s and perfectly happy not to be this superpower of some sort, if you get what I mean. 

Then there’s my backseat, ride or die, sidekick issues.  I never like to be in the front. That’s why I choose the most bodacious, off tha chain type personalities in my men, because I work well and get satisfaction in being the side kick.  Everybody isn’t meant to be the super hero. I found that movie Sky High to be so prolific in my life, lol  If Caun gets his things really up and running - supporting him, helping with that etc.  The role of ‘wife’ and ‘woman’ was ingrained in me since birth and it’s a hard one to shake - which is why career woman will never really be my title.  The twist is that I am self sufficient, so it’s not a circumstance of the man getting big leaving me and I don’t know what to do or how to survive.  I take pleasure in the ‘beside every good man is a good woman’ role..so sue me.

Well that’s where I am at in my head today. Maybe someone can feel that, if you know a career counselor let me know.