cue the 90s grunge rock ballad

okay folks.

so apparently, I have been effervescent, upbeat and "cutting the cynicism with humor" (a la LC's description, which will go on the back of my first Chelsea Handler-esque memoir) and generally seeming to be "havin' a blast" down here in Texas.

 Today, I don't know if I can offer that same level of optimism.  Usually, I would choose not to blog on the negative, but I think I'm not giving you the full picture here.

 I live in a hotel room off of the side of a highway. I have 12 hour days in an over-airconditioned training center where I learn information that is important, but so boring you have to drink six cups of coffee just to stay awake.  I am with generally great people, but a lot of large personalities in a very little place.  (Hint: You are never allowed to call me loud again. Oh honey. Y'all don't even know.)

When we are finished with the day, it is 105 degrees, and only beating sun and asphalt as far as the eye can see. I retreat to my hotel room, blinds closed.  I've been watching reruns of "Freaks and Geeks".



I left a pretty good life. I had a pink bike. I worked three nights a week and occasionally made decent money, did not hate being a waitress most of the time, drank a gratuitous amount of beer, and had a stable relationship. I was toying with the idea of moving to New York.
 Essentially, I was an average 22 year old, fresh out of college and fresh out of ideas.
(Fresh Out of College and Fresh Out Of Ideas. A Novel By Sarah Dessen.)

 This is the first time in my life that I felt like I was beginning to unravel that "personal life" mystery, and how being a normal person without a thousand checklists to check off worked.  I procrastinated. I slept late.  I ate a lot of pizza. I did some fringe theatre, and did not immediately update my resume, and I let the strings on my guitar go unchanged for three months.  I lived at a professor's house full of animals, ate popcorn for lunch and dinner, went on 15 mile bike outings at the drop of a hat, & slept somewhere that wasn't mine without finding it hard to sleep.
 I kind of loved it.

It wasn't all perfect.
 There was a lot of boredom, frustration and fear, because I had just graduated college with a pretty decent resume a pretty decent GPA, a pretty decent amount of loan debt, and couldn't even land an interview at a publishing firm, a theatre, or pretty much anywhere else where my education would  be directly applicable.  Yes, I know that this is normal.  But really? Not even one?
Skeptics say I should have waited. Patience is a virtue.  Unpaid interships are a gift from god.

But my trust fund is $5,000.
 I've got a couple of really nice parents who have helped me more than enough in this lifetime, and will probably continue to be too supportive because they love me or something. It was time to grow up, I thought. Try out autonomy.  Plus, I had an unpaid internship. It was for a company that actually could not afford to pay me, the University helped me out, and I still thought "no, I think my work is worth some money". Not a lot. Just like, you know, any. And that goes for pretty much all of the liberal arts minded people I have met, who are taking unpaid work "for the love of the work" Yes. the work is loveable. But so are you. And its still work. At least get a bottle of wine for your troubles.

And, while my college debt is pretty much average-to-lowish, I landed on my ass with about as much debt as I will have salary this year. Who am I kidding--probably a little  more debt than salary.

 So, while I "decided" to become a Flight Attendant, I didn't really feel as though I had a lot of choice when I landed the job. It was, after all a job.  And I wasn't going  to move in with my parents. Just with my sister. Doesn't count as pathetic if its your sister.

So here I am, at the halfway point with a plan and a straight path and a life of supposed adventure. I run my two miles most days, and I play my guitar in the hallway with its shiny new strings, and when the alarm clock rings at 3:45 am I wake up, put my hair in a bun and go out.  I go through all of the motions, but I don't know if these are the ones I really was meant to take.

And my version is only one story of  "8 1/2 weeks of unpaid training". Likely, one of the less severe, too.

  All of my classmates have left home, families, husbands, children, other jobs, stability, routine, and all of those things that I have just over-stated on my end.
We left it all to live the glamorous life.
AKA:  to live in a hotel room in Texas for two months, in the hope of a good job.  Of course, these two months are "still an interview". Everything we do, say matters.  For the next six months? Still an interview. No union protection. We can be let go at any time. Let's be real, even with union protection that is an option. This is AmErIcA,  after all.

We had a choice of five bases, and most of my classmates are living at least several hours away, if not across the country from their homes.  For us young folk, that part feels a lot easier.  "Cut your hair, and move anywhere" Those with families and attachments? Not so much. A lot of rearranging and managing of expectations and strained skype sessions are filling up the free time of those of us halfway through training. Too late to back out now.

Technically speaking, we have five days between our active status as flight attendants and graduation. But two of those days are used for base indoctrination.  We aren't dropped at home, or where we want to go. we go to base. We find an apartment, or more realistically, a crash pad and we make due.  This is flight attendant life.

I'll spend most of my time alone in a hotel room when I'm on layovers.  Three day layovers are expensive, often a thing of the past.  Nine hours in Vegas, and I'll be back around to DC again, possibly pit-stopping in Chicago, Detroit, New York. Just Long enough to see the skyline from the exit seat window, which looks like a fishbowl--bloating everything in the middle of the pane  to ungodly proportions, cutting off half of your expected view, causing you to go cross-eyed--and then off again.  Coffee, Tea, or me. 

Everyone cautions against being tied down too young. Getting too many entanglements that hold you back from "who you're supposed to become".  I think my biggest entanglement is the need to "become" something.  I take those grandmotherly smiles about being "somethin' else" way too seriously, I guess its the old ego doing its good work.

But there is only really one thing that I am wise about in my very young mind, and that is the notion that everything is consistent in only one way; its impermanence. People are not exempt from this rule, either. I know how hard it is to say goodbye, and how permanent goodbyes can be. Goodbyes do, after all, end things. And I have this bad habit of trying to cram every person I meet into the walls of my heart and keep them there forever.


So please excuse me if I tell you in a phone conversation, or on the internets, or after I finish training that I am not in my best of moods here. There are tenament riots in my chest, and a lot of doubt in my everywhere else.
And of course I do, since i spent 17 years there, but I miss school. I miss class discussions about nothing important that feel important, and production meetings and first read throughs and drunken football nights.  I hate how quickly the past goes and how slowly the present goes, when you just want to hurry up and either get to the future or go back, back back, because this is just a lot of ache and bother.

I promise that after tonight, things will be quirky and funny. Tonight, I just don't have it in me.