Slice of my Life

No one ever thinks to compare me to the TV character Dexter, because I'm not a blood spatter analyst living in Florida. I am also not a middle-aged man who kills people in his spare time. Small details in comparison to how we are similar.

 We both have secret lives, and the fact that no one ever thinks to compare me to this infamous doubled-lifed character seems to prove just how good I am at keeping it a secret. For both of us, our secret lives need to be kept hidden out of fear of what would happen if anyone were to know. Sure, he fears that everyone in his life would turn on him and he would spend the rest of his days in prison or be killed; and yes, I can agree that a prison-sentence would be worse than anything that could happen to me. Either way, the truth remains that both Dexter and myself spend our time keeping our true nature a secret from the world. If anything, my situation is worse because I am real person that has to deal with myself in real life.

Much like Dexter, I have a job that doesn't reflect my true desires. I am a teacher. This isn't the type of situation where I feel I'm in the wrong career field and I'm creating this whole Dexter analogy because I want to be dramatic (although..I do love to do that). The truth is, I could be in the field of snow globes, ice cream, or balloons and it wouldn't matter. I use teaching to hide my truest inner desire, which is to do nothing. All I really want from society is for it to leave me the fuck alone. No jobs, no taxes, no insurance, no bank accounts. Nothing. The only thing stopping me from giving up and living out my days "off the grid" in a tent made out of old issues of Cosmo is that I had a good upbringing, and I like money. And things. But I don't want to have to work for the money and things, I would like them to simply be granted to me. I want someone to realize that being a functional adult in today's society makes me miserable and to simply give me a bunch of money. I don't see the problem in that. Also, I don't want to deal with the strings that come along with those money and things. Can't I just have money in peace? Why do I have to have taxes? More over, why do I have to DO taxes? I don't want the government to take my money, so it is really adding salt to the wound that I have to DO something in order to do something else that I don't want to do….there is a whole lot of doing going on.

No one realized, not even myself, how serious I was about this completely irrational sense of entitlement until about a week ago. Last week,  I decided to demote myself from my wonderful job so that I could pursue my dream of doing nothing.

I am well into my 28th year on this earth, and I have been getting away with working part-time for the past 10 years. That was, until, I got the idea that I should create a full time position at my current school and FILL THE POSITION MYSELF. I don't know where I got this sudden urge to go against my instincts and put forth effort into something. Now, only 3 months in, I am burnt out. Do you have any idea how hard it is to work full time while you are simultaneously trying to plan a wedding AND pursue your dreams of doing nothing? It's next to impossible.

However, all joking aside, I actually really enjoyed my job. And I did have real reasons for demoting myself back down to part-time teaching; reasons that I won't bore myself with rethinking.  I would hate to relive all those thoughts because I agonized over this decision for weeks. It was as if I was 2 different people. 1 of me wanted to have a successful career and be proud of my work, while the other 1 of me didn't want either of those things. I had a couple of conversations with my loving mother about my dilemma, one of which went like this:

Me: "Mom, I just don't know what to do."
Mom: "well, I understand that it is a huge commitment, and I don't think it has ever been your dream to have a career".

Now, this conversation would have gone multiple ways. And only now, 3 days later, am I wondering if her saying that was some type of test..that I failed. Perhaps she thought saying it would strike up some type of pride that she was hoping had been hiding deep down inside me. Maybe she was expecting a "What are you talking about?!? I am career oriented! I am a modern woman!"kind of reaction…needless to say, that isn't what happened. What I really said, without any hesitation, was...

Me: "Exactly!"

And after saying it, I felt a huge sense of relief. Much like Dexter probably felt when Deb found out the truth, I now feel happy knowing that there is at least one person out there that 'gets me'. It was as if the sun had finally risen over years of hidden truth.


The truth feels good,
LD