Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Curb Your Enthusiasm


I don’t know about you, but my enthusiasm for my job cycles.  Right now, I’m really in a down cycle.  I made the decision to stay put and will be made partner next month.  I feel like I should be more excited about that.  But I’m not.  Maybe I’m just having a delayed reaction, maybe its my allergies, maybe I’m just being pessimistic, but instead of being excited, right now I just feel stuck. 

I do love what I do, but recently I’d just really rather be doing something else – anything else.  Sitting at home reading a book – watching bad TV – doing laundry…  It’s affecting my work.  It’s not the first time that I have felt this way, it seems to hit about once per year.  But this year, it’s worse.  Maybe it’s my version of a midlife crisis.  The prospect of looking around and taking stock of my life and knowing “This is it” is pretty daunting.  I mean, it’s not like I ever had really big dreams for myself…no delusions that I would get on the Supreme Court or become a Senator, but I wanted something.  Something to make me feel like I was doing some good, like I made a difference.  I’m pretty sure I have that.  

What I am struggling with is where I have it.  I grew up in a small town, left after High School and never looked back.  In college I traveled to Japan and Korea, spending a year abroad.  After college it was St. Louis, MO, then Missoula, Montana.  I spent three weeks in the UK… What I am struggling with is how I got here.  Back in Iowa, in a town smaller than the one I left in the first place. 

I blame this latest episode on Sirius XM.  Last week, they replaced BBC Radio 1 with another standard channel.  I loved BBC Radio 1; I could listen to it and it reminded me that there is a big world out there – beyond the ultra-conservative farm community I am surrounded by.  I could imagine that I was somewhere else, somewhere cool and progressive.  Not only did it help me “get away,” but it also anchored me – in the UK, they have problems with drugs, abuse, politics just like here.  Things are not that different.  I wasn’t really missing anything, ‘cause in general, the same things happened there as here… dumb, I know. But true.  I had a window to the world and now it’s gone; I’m back in small-town Iowa with no prospects of ever getting out… Geesh, I’m a whiner today. Sorry.  That’s what you get from stream of consciousness writing I guess.

If anyone out there has had the same crisis of the soul as I seem to be having, I’d love to hear your advice, your war-stories, your sympathy J.  For now, I am, unenthusiastically, yours,

Christine

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