In the tradition of all great bloggers everywhere I am writing a post about my impending 30th birthday. In the tradition of all great egos I cleverly labeled this part 1. I don't know that there will be a part 2 but in the interest of giving my self enough space to wax poetic and cry on the proverbial shoulder of the blogosphere (Holy hell, my computer just auto-corrected my spelling of 'blogosphere'. Has that really become a real word?) I figured that I should give myself the option of posting multiple volumes on this particular subject.
In exactly 8 days I will be leaving my 20s behind. Now, with the long life expectancy of your average American male this isn't quite the milestone that it used to be. It is still, however, a big deal. Especially to those of us who look back on the last few years with such a long list of regrets. Regrets that are exacerbated by the amount of drinking, smoking, having casual sex with general disdain for taking care of myself that I have endured throughout my 20s and have undoubtedly dropped my life expectancy into the 50s.
People may read this and say, "It's too early to be having a mid life crisis." To those people I say,
"Prove it!"
My early twenties were spent in college. That should say enough. I went to class (some). I worked (some). But, I spent the majority of my time at parties, bars, and other social gatherings. I graduated with basically the bare minimum requirements. My grades weren't terrible but let's say that I wasn't exactly inundated with job offers or invitations to graduate school upon my graduation. Even with all that in mind, I wouldn't say my college career was wasted.
I made some invaluable friends during my time at ISU. Many of them I am still in contact with and remain close to even today. My high school career was one of tortured anonymity and as such college was a much needed switch. I honed my social skills and got to the point where there was almost nowhere I could go in my college town without knowing someone else who was there. It was great, and comfortable, and kept the loneliness at bay.
To those of you whom I met at ISU or through other sources while I was in school, you know who you are, and I want you to know you mean the world to me. In the interest of leaving you anonymous, on the off chance that someone actually reads this post, I'll only use letters to indicate your names. And if you're clever I bet you can identify yourself. So, to: JF, KC, EE, MS, TF, BC, CS, MB, JG, TJ, AL; I just want to say thank you, and I love you all. To those of you who I may have left off of this list, please don't take it as a slight. Many of us have lost contact but the additions you've made to my life cannot be measured.
After graduation I moved back to Indianapolis and into an apartment with my girlfriend. And right around this time is where I've begun to really second guess many of the decisions I've made. I do not regret moving in with her, what I regret is the way I handled the situation which, with some other factors, led to the eventual demise of our relationship.
We moved to Indy together. She was able to find a decent job (that could eventually mold itself into a career) fairly quickly. I wasn't quite so fortunate. It took months for me to even find a job as a waiter. The financial aspect of the move wasn't a huge strain. I had enough savings (mostly left over from daddy's money) at the time to float us for a few months even without gainful employment for myself. After about 9 or 10 months of working as a server at a mid-range Italian restaurant I was given an opportunity as a salesperson at a low-end furniture store. My brother worked there and was in the good graces of the GM at the time which basically allowed me to walk in to a job that I was totally unqualified for. I went from working 25-35 hours a week making almost nothing to working 50+ hours a week and potentially bringing home 60k a year. It was an opportunity I couldn't pass up. I had the chance to make some real money for the first time in my life. And due to how long it took me to finally graduate I was already a smidge behind the whole "starting my adult life" thing than a lot of the people I graduated High School with.
It wasn't an easy transition for me. I had been a slacker for such a long time that it was a serious reality check when I had to work, and work hard, to make the kind of money that I wanted to be making. To make a long, boring story short; I went from all play and no work to all work and no play in the matter of a few weeks. I wanted to do well. I found a new desire to be "successful." It was a major transformation from the screw-off I had been for such a long time.
I don't regret taking the job. What I do regret is how much I allowed it to effect my life outside of work. A and I worked opposite schedules. I was working retail hours (9am-10pm) and she was working food service hours (3pm-1am). When she was getting home and wanting to go out and be social, I was headed for bed to get ready to work the following morning. While the difference in schedules was real and made things difficult, I never should have let it fester and disease our relationship as much as I did. I should have made more time. I should have sacrificed a productive day of work on occasion or tried to take more time off. I should have put her happiness as more of a priority as opposed to thinking, "She just needs to understand."
Don't get me wrong, it hurt me too. I lost contact with a lot of people. I sacrificed a good portion of my social life in the attempt to be successful. We were a great couple. We had friends together. We went out and were sociable. We had fun. I let work ruin that. It took a while for me to get rolling as a salesperson. But, once I did I should have fought harder for a little more balance in my life and in our relationship. My regret at the way things transpired knows no bounds.
A, I am sorry I let you down. I hope you can understand that I was just trying to do right by you and by us. I wanted to make it work. In retrospect I have found that I was holding on too tightly and ended up suffocating a good many of the great things in my life.
I don't mean for this post to be too much of a downer. There were good times too. A and I had a few great years together. I can say honestly and without embarrassment that I loved her. I loved her more than even I knew until it all came crashing down.
The final straw in our relationship came when I accepted the offer of a "promotion." I use quotation marks because in this sense "promotion" means a job with longer hours, higher stress, more responsibility, less pay but has added benefit of having the title of manager attached to it.
There were a handful of reasons I decided to take the position; chief among them was my desire to purchase my own house. I don't know how many of you have gone through the mortgage process but it is damn near impossible to get one on a commission based pay system. Having a salary makes it a dozen times easier.
Once I took the promotion the small part of my life that had not yet been consumed by work was gobbled up almost instantly. I was working 60-80 hours a week and it took everything I had just to keep going. I took the weight of the store on my shoulders. I was going to be the best god damn manager that place had ever seen and there was no project or responsibility that I wasn't going to take on. After more than a year of me putting her on the back burner, I believe this additional strain is what finally took A to the brink. She was living with a workaholic, her boyfriend as she knew him had ceased to be. She left me.
I can't blame her too much. Looking back I must have been a bear to live with. Stressed and unhappy all the time. I brought my work home with me far too much and we rarely saw each other. I tried to keep doing all the little things. I made dinner and bought her flowers. But the damage had been done. A year and a half of this was enough.
One Saturday night after a 70 hour work week my boss called me into his office. He informed me that, starting Tuesday, I was being transferred to a different store. A and I had already been having problems and I was sleeping in the spare bedroom and this transfer was sure to add even more stress. Needless to say, this news wasn't what I wanted to hear for both personal and professional reasons. The new location was 45 miles away and I was receiving nothing in the way of compensation. I went home, and fell asleep. The following morning I went into our bedroom to discover that A had never come home the previous night. I hadn't heard from her and had no idea where she was. I was some combination of furious and worried and although we had been having problems, this was the first time she had disappeared without so much as a word. I went to work and tried to continue with my day. I finally heard from her halfway though the day. She was OK but didn't really want to talk via text message (understandable). I got home hours before her and tried to keep myself busy because I knew that the conversation to come was not going to be pleasant.
She came home and the argument ensued. After a couple hours of yelling at each other she decided that we shouldn't "live together anymore," which was tantamount to us not being together anymore. There was no "us" anymore. There was only "me" and "her." We had been heading toward that precipice for a long time and when the bottom fell out it turned out that I didn't have a parachute.
I grabbed my dog and went to stay the night at my father's house. The following morning I rented a U-Haul, gathered my brothers and moved most of my stuff out of our apartment and back into my father's house. The following day I started work in my new store. Just like that, a 4 year relationship was down the drain.
As a quick synopsis: At this point I was a month shy of 29 years old, back living at my father's, single with very few worldly possessions, and with a job that I hated and blamed for the demise of everything good in my life. So, yup, things were looking up.
#firstworldproblems
Guess I'll need a part 2 after all. To be continued.....
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