The Most Boring 'Coming Of Age' Tale There Ever Was

According to experienced bloggers, one of the best ways to get people to read your blog is to browse others and leave intelligent comments that show you are interested in what they have to say.  In an effort to win popularity, I do this shamelessly.  Alas, despite my best efforts, I have not built up much of a following, but I will not stop yet!  After all, I have only been blogging for about a month…. :)

In any case, this past Friday as I sat “working” at my desk I found myself perusing other blogs.  I came across one with a French title (it was highlighted on Blogger’s “Blogs of Note”) and was naturally intrigued.  I clicked the link, only to have a HUGE picture of Shia LaBoeuf pop up on my screen.  Apparently, he has quite a big fan out there!  Normally, this really wouldn’t bother me, but my boss just so happened to pick that very moment to emerge from his office, the prime location to see my computer screen.  (FML.)

How many of you out there have great situations in life that absolutely bore you?  Let me clarify:  I have a flexible job, excellent hours, fantastic co-workers, decent pay and I even see the value in what I do… but I am so disinterested in it.  Unfortunately, I have felt that way in some form or other at every job I have ever had.  In fact, I have had so many jobs that when I recently hit the one year mark at my current place of employment, I felt as though I should have been congratulated and offered a retirement package.  (By the way, I’m still waiting on that.)  I described it to Habibi like this:  One of the main reasons I don’t want to apply for another job some day is because I am so tired of writing down all past employment on applications.

On a related subject, Habibi and I are bracing ourselves to make a number of other big life decisions, all of which will affect each other.  In fact, each decision not only depends on the outcome of the one that precedes it, but also on the one that follows it.  Needless to say, I personally feel like I’m running in circles.  Yet this isn’t the part that bothers me.  The worst part about the whole thing is that there is nothing we can do about it right now except wait. 

Please don’t misunderstand me.  I am terribly excited for our life changes and look forward to starting a new chapter with great eagerness and anticipation.  On the other hand, I have never not known what the next step would be.  Even if I knew what I’d hoped it would be would never come to fruition, I still had goals.  Some of these ambitions were flat out unattainable, but they were mine and I worked toward them all the same.

When I was a junior in college, I took a card-making class with my mom while I was home on Christmas break.  She introduced me to a woman in her class who had been a French major herself, years before.  Eager to meet someone who shared my interests, I smiled cheerily, held out my hand and told her that I was studying French as well.  I will never forget what she said:  “I don’t really speak it anymore.  I haven’t practiced in so long that I forgot most of it.”

I remember thinking to myself I will never let that happen to me before merrily going my way.  Although this short conversation hasn’t come to mind in quite awhile, you know what French words come to mind now when I think back on my reaction?  Naïve, touché, cliché.

As I grow older (and somewhat more cynical), I am finding that I have a rather worthless degree; in hindsight, I wouldn’t change a thing. :)  I love speaking French, even if it is diminished to nothing more than a party trick.  (Suck on that, grouchy card-making lady!)  We all spend money on the things in which we find our own worth and value.  For me, that was a French degree.  Yet now, I do believe that I will have to find another -non-professional- outlet for it.  For the moment, I am finding satisfaction in achieving goals in running (mainly the way it makes my legs look) and writing. 

I mentioned in my very first post that my blogging is primarily for me, but I like to pretend that someone out there is actually listening to me.  For those of you who are, merci beaucoup. :)