Harebrained Schemes

There are (thank Christ) only a few occasions in life where you feel like you are standing on a precipice and have to decide then and there whether to jump or walk away. Times like these are scary but in days gone by I’ve always somehow wound up taking the more sensible route. Whether that means jumping so I escape and land safely on a steady platform of normalcy or have just ended up backing slowly away from the edge to return to what I know, is neither here not there. It just feels like I am hardwired to not be a total total idiot. I wholeheartedly blame my mother for this. She’s fiercely well-adjusted and, despite appearances to the contrary, extremely scary. There’s nothing worse than the look on her face when the occasional fuck-ups she’s managed to discover of mine have come to light (I’m pretty good at keeping from her the things she doesn’t really need to know. In fact, I’m pretty good at that with most people. I lead a number of double lives that are tailored to providing my nearest and dearest – and indeed not so nearest, and nowhere approaching dearest - the version of me they want or need to have. I like to think of myself as a bit of a Clark Kent character in that respect). Although I’m not afraid of fighting with her (which is something that the both of us really do enjoy doing), I am afraid of disappointing her. She’s pretty awesome and deserves a daughter that doesn’t make her cringe in embarrassment when the topic of me arises in conversation.

I know all my mum wants for me is a normal life. I’m guessing that’s all every parent wants for their children. This isn’t to say that she hasn’t supported some of the more madcap of my schemes but every time I come up with yet another harebrained idea she always forces me to think long and hard about the logistics and the practicalities. This more-often-than-not has the effect of me thinking ‘God. Effort innit?’ and it normally falls by the wayside before too long. Now the older I get, the more pressure I’m feeling from her to start considering my future in real terms: Stop messing, start settling. I’ve put up with your binge drinking and god knows what else, with random boys being brought into my home, with you over-spending on crap you don’t need. I’ve indulged your creative pursuits and all the adventures you’ve embarked upon. You’ve had your fun, can you not just get a job that pays alright like the rest of us and stop fannying around?
Not that she’s actually said any of this but it’s coming more and more to a head. Particularly as on Friday my boss laid done a job specification form in front of me and said ‘Let me know what you think of that’

My reaction at the time? ‘Erm…’

My reaction now? ‘Erm…’

The job I have currently I only really took to save money for travelling. I knew it had an end date so I wouldn’t be faced with any difficult decisions about whether I should stay or go as I was brought in to cover someone’s maternity leave. ‘Ooh, but you never know where these things will lead do you?’ people kept saying to me. Errr yeah I do. It’s going to lead me to go travelling around Europe for the summer like a minor character from an American frat movie. Interestingly though, now it’s a definite that the baby-lady is coming back, I’ve had loads of people coming up and saying ‘ahh, having to look for another job are you? That’s a bit of a shame’. Is it? Really? I mean, for one thing I always knew that was what would happen but also I EXPRESSLY ONLY APPLIED FOR THE JOB FOR THAT REASON IN THE FIRST PLACE. Would anyone really take a position advertised as covering maternity leave if they DIDN’T have a problem with committing too fully to something? However, now there’s this option on the table of taking a permanent role that pays even better and would mean I could continue purchasing the useless crap I love so much AND get a place of my own AND be able to afford to carry on putting petrol in my car (something that is getting harder and harder to do). These are all, quite frankly, fairly important pluses – particularly in the short term.

On top of it all, my mum is very insistent that I go for this. It does make sense financially, it would look good on my CV, it has got prospects within, and outside of, local government. What is your freaking problem Sazz?

Well my problem (one of them), since you ask, is that it feels like I’m being forced down this road that I’m not entirely comfortable going down. I know that the less choices I make now about my future the more difficult it’s going to be later on but I fully believe that if I go for this job then that’s it. I know what the next 40 or so years of my life are going to look like. They’re going to be pretty much in the standard template of every other person in the western world: Get a good job, get a flat, get a man, get a house together, get a kid. Done and done. When I think of it in those terms I start feeling like I’m going to have a panic attack. There’s nothing wrong with the average life but it’s just not what I have ever really wanted. The problem being – I don’t really know what I want in its place.
[I should say, for the sake of argument, that this may all be a moot point as not only does the aforementioned job require a degree of technical expertise that I do not possess but also would mean I had a minion. My very own minion. (I know right!). The closest I’ve ever come to having a minion before is my little brother – and even then, he had thoughts and opinions and pride so the minute he learned to talk he pretty much disregarded all his minion duties. Since then, I’ve avoided all sorts of situations where I would be in charge of people in any kind of responsible capacity. So again, I feel somewhat lacking in the skills I would need to cope with such things. However, as Mr Bossman would be interviewing for this role and would continue being my line manager I figure he thinks I can do it. I’m pretty sure the fact that I wear geek glasses and keep myself to myself means that I’ve successfully tricked people into thinking I’m intelligent and conscientious. The devil’s biggest trick was convincing the world he doesn’t exist. Mine is making people think I’m ok at my job. We each work to our strengths I suppose]

It may seem like I’m being melodramatic, that making a choice now doesn’t mean my choices are restricted later on, but how many people in their 30’s, 40’s, 50’s that you speak to ever really intended leading the life they have now? Without exception everyone seems to have fallen into what they end up doing. There was no real grand plan, but it was just choice A lead on to option B which meant they had to eventually take route C and suddenly they turned around to find they were at point Z just like everyone else. Then there was no other place to go unless they wanted to start all the way from the beginning again. Even if the only things all these people did want was a job and a wife and a baby with a few other status symbols thrown in... How many of them seem utterly content and fulfilled? I look around and all I can see are people wanting, yet the Groundhog Day continues. Queuing in snaking lines of traffic to get to a job you’re not that bothered about and causes you exponential stress week-on-week just so you can tick off all the boxes of capitalist fulfillment and maybe get to spend a handful of weeks a year doing something different like lazing in the sun, skiing down a slope, or sightseeing in a more exciting city than the one you happen to inhabit. Is this what I’m supposed to be aiming for?

But then, how do I know that aiming for anything different than that would ever make me any happier? Maybe the fulfillment comes from knowing that you fit in, that you’ve taken the path of least resistance, that you have a house and a car and a dog and get to go on package holidays once – maybe even twice – a year. Why am I smug enough to think I could carve out anything less humdrum and more interesting than that? Surely ALL routines just become routine before too long. Whether that means you still live the party lifestyle you had at 25 when you’re 55 (I know for certain that isn’t what I would want either, especially having watched a little of ‘Scott Baio is 45 and Single’ yesterday evening. His mate was ‘that guy’ and I found it more than a little depressing to see men of that age still behaving like that), or you find yourself in an office job which you return to day after day just to keep paying the bills up until you retire. Am I just fighting against something that is ultimately inevitable? Is this just another form of my commitment-phobic tendencies rearing its ugly head? Does my mother really know what’s best for me after all and the sooner I accept that the better?

Yet, on the other hand, I’m sure I read or heard, or absorbed from somewhere a quote along these lines that I keep returning to; ‘no-one ever became happy doing what their parents wanted them to do’.

True dat.

In other news, I’ve also sent a tentative email out to a tv company looking for contestants who love dancing and want to lose weight. Um… only hells yeah. Being part of some kind of dance competition would fulfill about 17 of my life ambitions (well one). Please note: yet another harebrained scheme that probably won’t amount to anything. Maybe we all just need to accept that doing this kind of shit is just who I am.