Life through a skewed lense.

As a woman of a certain age (more than 29, less than 31) there are certain expectations put on me by society. I feel like I'm a failure when I don't meet these high standards. And being a female means that once a month I feel even worse about it. Today is one of those days.

I am working in a store two days a week, the rest of the time I try to keep myself occupied which, sadly, involves a lot of tv time. I complain about wanting more work, more hours, or even a different job. But I do very little about finding a new one.

I don't know what to do with myself. I'm overweight, and I hate it. So I've joined a unique exercise class with an 8 week challenge and after the first week, at our weigh in, I was the exact same weight. Now, truth be told, I ate more junk food than I should have during that first week, but I still felt down that I hadn't even lost a fraction of a pound. Tonight is the next weigh in and I am dreading it. I've had a better week food wise, but I still have a really negative feeling about going to the class, let alone having to stand on the scales. With the emotions flying around today I may just cry if the figures don't go down. The worst part is I have such a desire for sweet things. I want pancakes, and waffles, and cake, and biscuits! All the time!

I feel inadequate when I look at my sisters. One has a great life. A wonderful, caring husband, a house, two great kids, a job she loves that she created for herself and a social life with friends.  The other has made the decision to go back to college after a few years out. She's found something she loves and, to top it off, is great at. She always looks so well put together and has a wonderful eye for fashion, colours and is completely, totally, 100% honestly herself. I wear the same crappy clothes day in, day out. Reasons for this include, but are not limited to, a lack of funds, a lack of creativity, a lack of self confidence.

It's a vicious circle really. This lack of funds thing is a problem, which is caused by the lack of hours at work and having bills that come first. I'm thirty years old and can't drive and don't own a car because I've never had the luxury of having a full time job so I could pay for lessons so I can get a licence. A car is such a huge expense, even a crappy fourth hand twenty year old car still needs tax and insurance and someone with a licence to drive it.

Go to a dictionary or a thesaurus. Find all the words that you can that would describe someone who was suffering with a very, very low self esteem and I think most of them would apply to me. Especially for one week a month. The other three I feel okay. I cope. I don't feel great but I put on a good face. It's not easy. It's part of the reason I started going to the exercise class, hoping doing three or four classes a week would help cheer me up, make me feel better. And it works, temporarily. But only temporarily. The instructor is amazing, and she is always happy and smiley and in a good mood, and it motivates me to see her so cheerful, but the following day the motivation is gone.

Rambling helps sometimes, thats what this is for I suppose. I can tell my partner and he listens, but I don't think he truly understands. He tries, and he is wonderful, but I feel silly when I try explain my moods and thoughts and emotions to him. So sometimes I just say I'm fine, and leave it at that. Isn't that what we all do?

Filming and such

A film crew came to town this week to film a commercial for a national chain of grocery store. There were auditions, road closures; they even painted a couple of run down buildings on the main street to make everything look picture perfect.

But the complaints! I work in a store, on the main street, and all I heard throughout the day the road was closed was complaints and questions. Mostly "When will they be done?"

It was possibly the nicest day we have had so far this Spring. The sun was shining, the sky actually looked blue, there were only whispers of clouds up there and to top it all off, it was warm. Imagine! In Ireland, in April, it felt warm! Crazy. But people were complaining because on this beautiful day they had to - wait for it - walk down the town, and go ever so slightly out of their way to get to their destination instead of going down the pain in the behind, one way system, awkward, skinny ass hill that passes for a main street in this place. I just don't understand people.

To be fair, yes, some of the people are folks who need to drive, who cant walk very far and have relatives drop them at the door, but 90% of the moaners were able bodied. Just plain lazy.

Get up. Get out. Enjoy the sunshine. Enjoy the fact that Our Town has been chosen as the place to film this commercial. Be excited. Be involved. But mostly, if you can't say something nice, keep your mouth shut.

Day One.

I turn 30 this year. August 12^th to be exact. And I am unprepared. I didn’t think turning 30 would bother me, and if I’m honest I guess the age itself isn’t my issue; the issue is that I made a list – mentally – as a teenager, as I think many of us do, and so very little has been crossed off that list that it bothers me. I feel like I’m falling behind almost, that I should be at a certain point in my life and I’m not.

At the age of 15 I figured that by 25 – 10 years seemed a long time back then – I would be married (or at the very least engaged); I would have a kid (or, again, at least be pregnant or attempting to get pregnant) and I would have a job that I enjoyed doing and was good at. To complete the bonus level on Life 2.0 you also should have a house, a car and some pets thrown in for good measure.

Nope. Nada. Zilch.

I have a wonderful partner (I’m almost 30, calling him my boyfriend makes it sound like I’m a cradle snatcher) and a job so I can’t say nothing good has happened, but the job is part time and while its enjoyable, it has it’s down sides.

Because of this part time enjoyable job, I find myself alone a lot, at home during the day. You would think this would be good. The house would be clean, dinner would be on the table, washing and ironing up to scratch, but no, unfortunately not the case. I find that being alone so much makes me sad, lethargic, and completely unmotivated to do pretty much anything. I try to keep up appearances but to be honest I watch a lot of bad TV. I attempt a few crafty things such as cards and weird button collages. Occasionally I bake, usually so I have junk food to eat. But all of this simply serves to remind me that I am not up to scratch.

Friends are getting married, having kids, buying houses. I think I feel that somewhere along the way something went wrong. I don’t want the fairytale ending, the big white wedding and the mice making my dress. But I do want a life that excites me. I want something that I can look back at in another 30 years and think ‘Yeah, that was a pretty good ride.’

I know I’m not alone. I know I am not the only almost 30 year old who’s stuck in a rut with no vision of what might be. I know I can’t be the only one who sits at home, desperate to change things but lacking the strength or courage to try. What if it all falls apart around me?