Dominique is Making Friends with 30…

telling it like it is

Sometimes life hands you a slap in the face.  A lightning bolt.  A huge and unexpected sign that the current path is not the right path.  Other times, life sends you a tap on the shoulder.  A tiny “ahem” from far away.  Then there’s the 3rd option.  The REALLY BIG SIGN you see coming for miles.  You don’t want to acknowledge it.  You would give anything for it to go away, but that isn’t happening.  That really big sign is a birthday that ends in a zero. 

I just turned 30 about 6 weeks ago.  It’s taken me this long to form a viable and remotely-congenial response to 30.  Thus far, we haven’t really gotten along.  No animosity, just general indifference toward one another.  30 isn’t going away though, so it’s time to make friends. 

To be clear, I am not afraid of getting older.  I don’t have wrinkles yet.  My hearing and memory are still excellent.  I don’t think 40 is the end of the world.  Me + aging = ok.  My problem is that the 30 that arrived on my doorstep was not the 30 I ordered from the catalog in my brain when I was 5.  Or 10.  Or 20.  Or even 25.  That 30 was supposed to be glamorous and successful.  She was going to throw dinner parties and drink martinis after work and spend her weekends doing outdoorsy glamorous things like hiking and biking and playing frisbee with her super fabulous dog.  The 30 who arrived on my doorstep is a schlub.  She is pale and pasty and sleepy.  She is definitely a candidate for “What Not to Wear” and its imaginary friends “What Not to Eat” and “What Not to Buy”.  The 30 that arrived on my doorstep must be some kind of mixup, but the company isn’t looking to take her back any time soon.  I guess it’s up to me to give her a makeover.  The first step will be to make friends with her, so let’s hope she’s friendly…and can hold her liquor.

At this moment, I am unsatisfied with my life.  This blog is a way to hopefully affect some change in that regard.  The first step to achieving any real change is to acknowledge the current state of things.  Unashamed, unbiased, totally open.  So here goes.

Right now, I am extremely overweight.  Several years ago (far too many for me to use as an excuse for my current situation) I had a very painful knee surgery and months of physical therapy.  When it was all over, I was so afraid of reinjury that I all but ceased any recreational physical activity.  The longer I was inactive, the more uncomfortable it became to be active.  Who wants to be uncomfortable when you can be lazy instead?!  Shameful.  Fun at times, but shameful nonetheless.  So now my physical condition today is: obese, woefully inflexible, and weak.  That’s going to change.  It’s time for me to be healthy, in mind and body.  It’s time for me to treat myself with the respect that I show to others.  I would never abuse a loved one or a stranger in the way that I abuse myself.  It’s disrespectful to me and to those that love me to behave this way.  The occasional cigarette that isn’t so occasional?  No more.  Weekends talking myself out of being productive to instead watch marathons on TV and take long naps?  Nope.  Vitamins and sleep aids to replace nutrition and quality rest?  Haven’t been working anyway, so why do I bother?  Things need to change.

Right now, I am not as accomplished in my career/financial life as I’d like to be either.  I never had a plan.  When I graduated high school and went to college, I had no plan.  It wasn’t that I had no ambition, cause I definitely wanted to be successful, I just didn’t know “at what”.  And my “at what” never really arrived.  I watched all my friends discover their passions and head toward them at full speed while I sat there and allowed the world to pass me by.  I felt like one of those people who are born with one kidney.  Something was missing.   I’ve sort of found it now.  I fell into HR and I do enjoy it, but I definitely don’t have the passion that others have for their careers.  Why is that?  Cause I’m an assistant.  Actually, I’m management-material in the assistant’s chair/pay range.  Why is that?  Cause I never finished those last 6 or so classes at LSU.  Why is that?  Cause when my “at what” was so late to arrive, I lost all focus and ambition.  So now I’m an assistant, I have hundreds of college hours but no degree, a good bit of debt from those hundreds of college hours, and no money to fix all this now that I’ve decided to change it.  That’s ok though, cause acknowledgement is the first step. 

And last but not least is my love life.  I have a practically-imaginary boyfriend named John.  He lives in Florida and he’s handsome and brilliant and wonderfully kind.  We met on eHarmony about a year and a half ago and we’ve been talking ever since.  We email, text and talk on the phone all the time.  Plans for visits always fall through (layoffs, health problems, deaths in our families) and so now we’re just kind of stuck.  We talk all the time and we care about each other, but we’re not really progressing toward anything.  I vascillate on who I think wants this relationship more.  Sometimes it really feels like we’re on the same page and we love each other so much and everything is just going to be perfect once the timing is right.  Other times, it feels like one or both of us are a hair away from jumping ship.  We’ve been through a lot together already (see above – why visits always fall through) so I don’t think either of us is taking this lightly.  But right now, I think we might be in a ship jumping phase.  Gonna have to work on this a bit too.  Hmmm.

So there it is.  Dominique has a yearlong houseguest and is trying to be friendly.  If you decide to follow this blog, I really do hope this will be the last whiny-fusspot entry.  The rest will be my journey to reinvent myself.  31 is just around the corner and I don’t want 30 saying bad things about me to her friends!