Limbo

I’m sitting at a reception desk at a college primarily serving international students – clearly a busy and hectic gig, what with all this time I have to create online personals profiles, post haiku on Craigslist, and write an Open Diary entry.  They decided to have me inventory their entire "library" of textbooks the other day – I’m halfway through and it took me about 4 hours yesterday.  They thought it would take me a week.  The only reason I’m not done yet is because I can’t leave my desk today due to the reception relief person having the day off.

I found out about the job on Wednesday, interviewed on Thursday, got hired on Friday, and quit my job at the Mexican restaurant on Saturday, with effectively no notice.  Of course I didn’t find out until I started on Tuesday that this is only temp work, and that the girl who actually has this job is on a month-long vacation to Europe (lucky motherfucker…)

I could lament my loss of a fairly stable near-minimum wage job slingin’ tacos… but somehow I think I can refrain.  At least now I’ve had a shift of energy and I can sit on the internet all day, allowing me to explore other opportunities in life.  Which brings me to my next point (if I even had a first one):

Now what?

I might be going back to school, first to a college university-transfer program, then university.

I might be able to swing an income and schedule consisting of temp work, life drawing modelling, and side projects.

I might find, be offered, or fall into a full time position related to what I actually went to school for and spent three years and over 10 grand of my parents’ money on.

Or, who knows, I might just end up doing something completely out of left field, that I can’t even anticipate or imagine at this point.

I don’t necessarily feel that being in limbo is such a bad place to be – it keeps me interested, keeps my mind open, and keeps me exploring new possibilities and opportunities.  As a fairly intelligent and well-socialized young thang, I’m also very aware of the fact that at my age I’m not generally expected to have all my shit together and have a stable life where I have every detail planned and know what I’ll be doing with the rest of my life.

It’s just that I’ve been consistently in this state since December 27th, 2006, when I decided to quit making the sex industry an option; and to a larger extent, since September 30th, 2005, when I worked the last day at my easy, cushy data entry job at the insurance corporation.

Do I ache to be back at the insurance corporation?  Would I take a full-time marketing position with this company if and when they offer it to me once my temp work runs out?  You know what?  I actually don’t think so.  And while some people might say I’m nuts, turning my back on work that would bring me stability and schooling-related work experience I can put on my resume… I just don’t feel that it’s right.

You know what does feel right?:

Self employment.  Contracts.  Flexible work hours.  Projects and multi-tasking.  Being involved with something I believe in passionately on a larger, values-based scale.  Being out of the mainstream, but with one toe still dipped in.  Clients instead of customers.  Creativity.  Constant learning.

Do we see why promotions and sex work appealed to me?  The problem lies in that I have to promote things I believe in and that make money (extremely rare, to say the least) and that sex work is inherently damaging to people who are involved in it.

If I go back to school, I go back full-time (something I haven’t done since high school) and I commit to getting a BA or higher.  If I don’t…

Life is a buffet.  But I’m so hungry, I don’t know where to start.