What Next...?

So this afternoon, I was talking with a friend regarding the course of my life. I'm 28 years old and while I have no complaints about my life thus far, I've seem to hit a bump in the road in which I'm wondering what is the next step for me. I'm about to finish graduate school, I have a great job and great friends, however, I seem to have made a complicated turn on the road of life and am now wondering....what next?

Ten years ago, I knew exactly what I was going to be doing by the time I turned 30. I was going to be working as an advisor in Washington DC, for the President of the US who would be pledging to make America a place like no other (Not Bush though) My job would be something similar to Josh Lyman on the West Wing...actually exactly like that character. While yes, it is a fictional character...his job is what I always envisioned Totally in control and working for a really great president, someone like Martin Sheen of course. But that's not the case at all.

There are many reasons for this....1) I don't live in Washington DC. When I was living there I could never catch a break. It seemed that everywhere I went I was competing against folks who were or had attended schools that were far superior than the school I had recently graduated from. 2) The job that I had while living there didn't allow for much upward professional movement. While I tried my best to be very proactive, it was always discouraging knowing that my efforts were sort of...well, not working. Finally, 3) I'm not, what you would call, a good kiss ass. Now, this might probably be the easiset thing to do, but for me, it was probably the worst part of living in the DC metro area....if you didn't know someone in the field of interest you were looking into and unwilling to pursue any form of kiss assing, well....you might as well get out of dodge. And yes, after about a year, I did just that.
I realized that my hopes and dreams which were supposed to happen in the great city of Washington, DC, would not. I would have to flee to the southwestern part of the country, in hopes to regain any desires I might have lost during my time in the political city out east.

So i move to Los Angeles. The city of grassroots organzing and active social justice. I've been here two years and I have yet to attend my first march....I have yet to become involved in anything at all political and now i'm wondering....what have I been doing these last two years. Should I have just stayed in DC and become the the kiss ass i know I could be?

Ok...kiss ass might be slightly offensive to my friends back east, but for me....i find using the word somewhat liberating. The city is filled with just that. No longer is it the city of change and progressive politics but instead a version of my own worst nightmare. the "magical" city, which is what I once and still continue to call has seemed to have lost it's magic in my own eyes. DC is now filled with politicians that are no longer speaking their mind and doing what is right. Instead they are saying what they need to say in order to stay in office. It's no longer an office that you want to hold with pride and hope to acheive as much for the country as possible, instead it is a job in which you take and hope to maintain, saying just enough and doing just enough to make the voters happy and keep you on for another few years.

It's my first posting, so bear with me. I'm kinda all over the place but only because their is a ton of things going through my head right now and I'm not sure how to formalize and structure it all. All I know is that I need to just sign off right now and hopfully bring back something more constructive tomorrow. I'm just going to sign out.

Or Is It?

The last few weeks i've continued to be in a contemplative mood. I've been thinking a lot about life and what my professional life will look like in the coming years. Currently, i'm not too happy with how things are going. I feel as if my professional life is at a standstill and once again I'm having the exact same feelings that I had one month ago when I last posted. Shouldn't this give me any indication of what I should already know and that is, move on? I'm really scared about moving on, or scared that i can't do it anymore....for the last ten years of my life, moving on to something different - making a change in my life has always been so simple. Everything that I owned could be easily packed up I would be at my new destination without problems. But after living in LA for 2 years, it's not as simple anymore. I feel that at my age i can't do the same things that I did during my early 20s. I mean think about it.... when you graduate from college, you're in a place where if you fuck up, people are going to be like..."you know, she's at that age where she needs to experience life." I'm no longer at that age. I'm at the age that if I do something crazy like get up and move without having a job and some security, i would be seen as someone that is irresponsible and definitely not an adult. No, i don't really care what people think of me but i think that society has conditioned us (i think) to follow a specific timeline.

I was watching this movie the other day on Lifetime (this channel may be the result of my self-destruction) and it was about a girl my age that lost her mother as a little kid, but right before the mother died, she made a timeline of how this girl should live her life. Now, the mother didn't expect for the daughter to intentionally follow the timeline exactly, she pretty much wrote it as a symbol of her existence (not sure if this makes sense) but this girl took it literally. LIke everything that was written down, she did it. But she did it without realizing that all the things that she accomplished was for the sake of her mother, but never because she truly wanted to do it. So she realizes later on that yes, she needs to leave her job as an attorney and instead become an artist which she really wants to do and that she should marry boyfriend #6 and not #7....(yeah, this is the trash they show on lifetime)

Anyways, my point is....and i did have one, is that i feel that i'm 28 and that i should already be in a certain place in my life because that's what society expects of me but i dont' really like where i'm at. I'm lacking the excitement that I always looked forward to as i was going to undergrad all those years ago. I always said...when i graduate...when i graduate. but i've been out of undergrad for 6 years....about to finish a masters degree in which it gives me no purpose and the only thing that's exciting in my life is happy hour on tuesday nights. Now, i'm not going to complain about happy hour on tuesday nights because it's so much fun, but theirs got to be more than that.

i'm flying out to san francisco tomorrow and i love that damn city. Maybe after this trip it'll give me some perspective. Otherwise, i'll have to wait till my trip home to NM in september, where I will spend 10 days with my family and i think it might be enough time to be thankful for living in LA.

Just maybe....