The search continues

So what have I figured out in a week's time? A fat lotta nothing! lol No, no, let me try to think more objectively for a moment...

1. Despite my love for and knowledge of animals I probably shouldn't work in any field having to do with them. My guidelines on how they should be treated and kept even at a minimum are strict and SOMEONE will always fall short turning things quickly into a big mess.

2. I've done retail type jobs to death and though I seem to be good at selling it just doesn't hold my interest. It becomes too much of a grind. It starts out great as I learn the products! My whole sales technique is to learn the products inside, out, and compared to others then simply tell customers about them honestly, the good, bad and ugly. I don't do pressure sales, period, but I do like partnering with a customer to help them find what's really right for them. I think I need something more mentally stimulating. Plus in sales it doesn't matter how much you sell, there's always a push to sell more and more and more which starts nudging you back towards the high pressure approach. What on earth is wrong with gaining in customer loyalty and satisfaction to count on word of mouth bringing in new customers for that sales growth? It's slower. That's it! The bosses want bigger profits and they want it now, now, now even if it means having to stay on that treadmill because you lose out in customer loyalty and satisfaction in the long run.

3. Working in restaurants seems to be even worse than retail, mentally void.

4. I tried a few plant nurseries thinking that with all there is to learn about gardening/landscaping and such it'd certainly be mentally satisfying enough but if someone mistreats a plant somehow I just don't get quite the same kind of hacked off as I do if it was an animal. Unfortunately there was so much to do simply maintaining the stocked plants that I never really got that mental stimulation and it too turned into a grind of water, pick off the dead bits, repot this, find a way to display that...blah.

5. I did daycare once and in some ways I simply loved it, especially when I was switched over to the babies that were about 12 months old! No matter what kind of bad mood I'm in nothing can magically turn it right around instantly like a baby! That particular job ended up having the same drawback as working with animals did, though. I could not, would not abide someone not treating those children as I thought they should be treated! No one at that daycare seemed to agree with me but I still say that keeping a boy in the 2-3 yr old room in a playpen all day every day so you don't have to deal with him is abusive.

Two ideas that I keep coming back to are nursing and psychology. Psychology I've kind of put on the back burner just because I don't know if I'm ready to go through quite that much school at my age! Nursing, on the other hand, would only take a minimum of 2 yrs of school and opens up realms of possibilities. Home care? Pediatrics? Pallative/Hospice? I volunteered for a Hospice for awhile before I moved away and found that caring for someone that is dying didn't bother me at all. I would feel pangs of sadness, of course, but I also felt great to be able to give some joy and comfort to people like that. But would it really fulfill me?

What about Ob/Peds? It would be a huge, awesome thrill to help babies come into the world, care for them, help new parents learn what to do, and all!! That just sounds like the best thing in the world to me!! But could I handle the dark side of the job where we lose a baby? It might help exorcise my own demons about the loss of Jonathan and who could sympathize with a woman who's just lost a baby better than another woman who has also lost a baby? But it might just rip that wound in me wide open again every single time. I just don't know which! What would I do if I didn't approve of how someone was handling a baby? What if I did something accidently that lead to the injury or even death of a baby??? Could I handle that??? It sounds like a possible minefield to me!

Pallative/Hospice type nursing wouldn't hold the same kind of risks for me but it wouldn't compare to the possible joys of Pediatric nursing either. Surely the joys would make the risk worth it? In that it would be similar to my days of animal rescue, at the sad, hard times you hold tight to the good times and remind yourself that you can only do what you can do, you have to hold on long enough to reach that light at the end of the tunnel because there'll be more there that really need you. Or am I just in the wrong ballpark completely with this? Am I idealizing the role of a nurse? I know that a lot of the job would be the mundane, dirty, hard stuff like changing soiled sheets, giving meds, paperwork, getting barfed on...but ANY job is going to have it's less than fun and pleasant side! Maybe I should push the idea of nursing aside and think about other options but what? Am I simply asking that to put off making an actual decision?

Searching

What am I still looking for? I'm content with what I have in life so far. A family, home of our own, my horses, those are all the things that I really wanted in life but there's something still missing. I've searched my heart and mind more times than I can count and sometimes I'm not sure but sitting here at the computer right at this moment it's clear that there's something else. And it's not the usual "I want/I need" type of thing because I could easily list loads of those! I'd like my van fixed so that we have two working vehicles again. I'd like to go to Pagan Spirit Gathering this year. I really want to do some more scuba diving. I need to figure out why these things from my past still hurt like they do, get some closure and put it behind me. But no, I think there's still some fundemental element that I need to be fulfilled. I believe what I'm looking for is a job!

So what's stopping me? I don't just want a job. I want to really do something that fills in that last spot in me! But what? That's the biggest thing holding me back, I think, not knowing what job to do! All my life right up till college the only thing I wanted to do was be a veterinarian. After working in a pet shop, running a rescue, and all the other animal related things I've done in life I'm actually grateful that I didn't become a vet! Having such a big part of my life subjecting myself to seeing an endless parade of animals suffering from ignorance, abuse, and neglect just might have ruined me. As much as I love animals and as qualified as I am to work with them in a variety of fields I really think that it's best I don't include them in my professional life.

There's things now and then that grab my interest, becoming a Bradley instructor , scuba instructor, certified hypnotist, pet sitter...that list is darn near endless but my interest in them fades out. Since I don't have to work at all in order for us to stay afloat financially I want to find something that I love! I want to be one of those blessed people that get up in the morning feeling happy that they get to go into work! So what would I enjoy that would hold my interest long term? I think it might be people.

People are endlessly fascinating to me but they also scare me to death and I worry that I don't get along well with them. I don't know why though! For instance, we've now gone to this new church in Austin three or four times and everything's great so far. We've met quite a few very friendly, interesting people which I've enjoyed immensely! I like them just fine and they seem to like me just fine but I know that the longer I'm around these same people the closer I get to a day when I don't like them and they don't like me for some reason. Maybe I'm too strange. Maybe I don't accept other's shortcomings easily enough. Maybe I'm not confident enough in myself. Hmmm this is something I'll have to really think about. I'll letcha know more about it next Tuesday.