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....
