Dining on Ashes
Oct. 18th, 2008 09:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dolariThere are feelings that dwell just under the surface that I keep to myself as best I can. Somedays they explode to the surface. Othertimes they slowly
seep and bubble up.
Today a hole was poked in the tarp I use to keep them covered, and before I knew it I began my spiral into a mini-depression.
I'm not happy in my career path. Not my job, per se, but my whole career. I really hate tech support. Which sucks cause Im very good at it. I once shared this secret with a
coworker who just put her had on my shoulder and said "You must be destroying your soul" I was. And still am. In fact I'm destroying it two times over now.
There were two points in my life where my life could have changed drastically. One was the sitdown talk with the comic artist I once admired. He told me, in no uncertain terms,
I would never be an artist. I wasn't marketable, my ability wasn't good enough, stop following a pipe dream and make some real money elsewhere.
And I believed him. Instead of saying "screw you" I left the comic world behind, and nearly every fandom I was a part of to make my way in tech support.
Why? I was good at it, and after a few years I expected to be making a ton of money, to finance my SRS.
If id just fought a little harder, practiced a little harder....but I didnt. Then came the second chance.
I worked for kinkos about a year. I did document creation. Using my artistic skills to make logos and design brochures and newsletters and business cards. It was a lot of fun.
And, in September, I got a job offer from Dell. They were going to pay a shitload of money to politely talk to people on the phone.
I hate talking on the phone.
I hate being polite to people who are yelling at me.
What I saw was a much bigger paycheck than what Kinkos was giving me. SRS.
All seemed to be going well. I was making good money, my savings was getting bigger and better...and then the dot-com bubble burst and everything went to hell. Do you know, that I'm only making 75 cents more than I was in 2000? Seventy freaking five cents more. And after years of watching my savings get wiped out repeatedly and surgery get more and more expensive, and jobs become harder and harder to come by, like a passenger running out of steam as his missed train pulls away from the station, I watched my chances for SRS fly away from me.
Over the years, I've watched my standard of living plummet, and when I hit 32, I gave up on SRS alltogher to try and make a living from what I was doing, instead of going for one goal, even if it was a goal that meant more to me than life itself.
I did try one last time to get back into the art thing, and took all of 2005 off to try and get an art career off the ground. But everywhere I went, people wanted me for my tech skills and not my art. After a year, I gave up on that and went to work in San Marcos.
It's made me very bitter and resentful. It's seriously dmaged a few of my friendships as I see people who get their surgeries and tried to just swallow down that rising bile and keep the friendships going. In some cases, I'm successful. In others, not so much.
But what if I'd known what I know now. That I'd be totally unfulfilled both in my professional life and my trans-life? I'd have prolly lost Emily as I would never have done my comic. I never would have left San Antonio as I would have been working with the comic company there. Dean may have moved to SA instead of me going there. I prolly still wouldn't have SRS, but I'd at least be drawing.
Then again, I didn't make that decision. I made another, and here I am, working a career I hate, in a body I hate. I sometimes feel like I pin to many of my hopes much on Emily. Other times I realize she's all I have left.
::sigh::
Back to the mines in the morning. Gotta make my way north somehow....
seep and bubble up.
Today a hole was poked in the tarp I use to keep them covered, and before I knew it I began my spiral into a mini-depression.
I'm not happy in my career path. Not my job, per se, but my whole career. I really hate tech support. Which sucks cause Im very good at it. I once shared this secret with a
coworker who just put her had on my shoulder and said "You must be destroying your soul" I was. And still am. In fact I'm destroying it two times over now.
There were two points in my life where my life could have changed drastically. One was the sitdown talk with the comic artist I once admired. He told me, in no uncertain terms,
I would never be an artist. I wasn't marketable, my ability wasn't good enough, stop following a pipe dream and make some real money elsewhere.
And I believed him. Instead of saying "screw you" I left the comic world behind, and nearly every fandom I was a part of to make my way in tech support.
Why? I was good at it, and after a few years I expected to be making a ton of money, to finance my SRS.
If id just fought a little harder, practiced a little harder....but I didnt. Then came the second chance.
I worked for kinkos about a year. I did document creation. Using my artistic skills to make logos and design brochures and newsletters and business cards. It was a lot of fun.
And, in September, I got a job offer from Dell. They were going to pay a shitload of money to politely talk to people on the phone.
I hate talking on the phone.
I hate being polite to people who are yelling at me.
What I saw was a much bigger paycheck than what Kinkos was giving me. SRS.
All seemed to be going well. I was making good money, my savings was getting bigger and better...and then the dot-com bubble burst and everything went to hell. Do you know, that I'm only making 75 cents more than I was in 2000? Seventy freaking five cents more. And after years of watching my savings get wiped out repeatedly and surgery get more and more expensive, and jobs become harder and harder to come by, like a passenger running out of steam as his missed train pulls away from the station, I watched my chances for SRS fly away from me.
Over the years, I've watched my standard of living plummet, and when I hit 32, I gave up on SRS alltogher to try and make a living from what I was doing, instead of going for one goal, even if it was a goal that meant more to me than life itself.
I did try one last time to get back into the art thing, and took all of 2005 off to try and get an art career off the ground. But everywhere I went, people wanted me for my tech skills and not my art. After a year, I gave up on that and went to work in San Marcos.
It's made me very bitter and resentful. It's seriously dmaged a few of my friendships as I see people who get their surgeries and tried to just swallow down that rising bile and keep the friendships going. In some cases, I'm successful. In others, not so much.
But what if I'd known what I know now. That I'd be totally unfulfilled both in my professional life and my trans-life? I'd have prolly lost Emily as I would never have done my comic. I never would have left San Antonio as I would have been working with the comic company there. Dean may have moved to SA instead of me going there. I prolly still wouldn't have SRS, but I'd at least be drawing.
Then again, I didn't make that decision. I made another, and here I am, working a career I hate, in a body I hate. I sometimes feel like I pin to many of my hopes much on Emily. Other times I realize she's all I have left.
::sigh::
Back to the mines in the morning. Gotta make my way north somehow....
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no subject
Date: 2008-10-19 09:29 am (UTC)Inadequate, I know. And to say "that sucks" is inadequate too.
no subject
Date: 2008-10-19 01:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-19 02:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-19 04:16 pm (UTC)IFs (Part 1)
Date: 2008-10-19 11:11 pm (UTC)So, this was artist you admired? For technical ability maybe? Seems to me that they were human too, and more than a little bitter about their own careers. Maybe he made money in it, but it seems to me that it wasn't enough for him, and they assumed that you'd have the same goals and dreams that he did.
Finance your surgery via comics? Not saying that's a totally unrealistic idea (there's probably someone out there that has) but it seems to be one based on pride rather than a practical grasp of the finances involved.
IF, IF, IF, IF. Maybe so, maybe not.
The biggest IF is "what IF we'd been born female?" But that was out of our control, and we may have been totally different people as well, and maybe just as frustrated to boot. All the hypotheticals do is sour the present, because what they do is compare our lives to our ideas of others. Those ideas are hopelessly vague and unrealistic when compared with what we know about ourselves. Because usually we can't see or feel all the doubts and uncertainties that other people have, we assume that they don't have them. But it's those doubts and uncertainties in ourselves that drive this sort of self destruction.
I know - I fall into this sort of thing a lot. What if I'd bought that house in Hamilton instead of Barnsley? What if I hadn't have gone to Katoomba and the engine of the car hadn't overcooked? What if I'd had my surgery at 28 instead of 43? What if I'd stayed at school and gone to university in my 20s? Would I be happier - who knows. What I have left is the promise of what might have happened.
Re: IFs (Part 1)
Date: 2008-10-20 09:33 am (UTC)>idea (there's probably someone out there that has) but it seems to be one
>based on pride rather than a practical grasp of the finances involved.
That was meant to be an answer to why I went to TECH SUPPORT. Not why I went to comics.
Thanks for the kind words though. MANY kind words. ::hugs::
IFs (Part 2)
Date: 2008-10-19 11:12 pm (UTC)Me too - there ought to be a switch that you can press that will mildly electrocute the person at the other end, and just make them STOP (just joking). I really don't like talking to people I've never met via the phone. I find it a struggle at best, and upsetting at worst.
You seem "overdue" to me. I felt that way in 2000 when a lot of the people I knew already had their surgeries and I hadn't. But, I also had almost 20 years in the public service with money in a roll-over fund that I could withdraw before 55. I got my surgery, but maybe if I hadn't been in dull jobs for so long I mightn't have been any closer to it today. Who knows. But it gnaws at your soul, I know that.
When it comes to careers, you don't just get one shot at things. You can always try again, either in full, or in part, doing what you can when you can, and at least as much as will stop the frustration from overwhelming you.
Maybe. But drawing what?
It's all a can of worms dear. Just tackle one at a time and you'll be able to empty it eventually. I know (from a distance because, really, I've never met you F2F) that the move you made was the right one. You made a leap of faith and I know that you are in the right place to make the next set of moves and decisions. And it's hard, fucking hard either way. If it weren't, things would be obvious and easy and everyone would be doing what they needed rather than what they have to do.
From my own experience, I know that it's better to keep one's dreams alive than have lots of money. I could have stayed in the public service and applied myself and probably would be the manager of the Publishing section in the Bureau of Statistics by now. I was good at what I did. But emotionally I would have been dead, if not dead by suicide, had I done that.
I wish I could give you a million hugs and make it all better, but the pain your feel right now is important, because it's telling you what's vital to you, and what you have to act on. Cherish Emily, and follow your dreams:
no subject
Date: 2008-10-20 12:56 am (UTC)