My daughter just turned 12 yesterday. I'm sort of at a loss on what to do with myself about that. She's quite self-sufficient except when she's not. And she's prone to making bad decisions based on what her friends are doing, or not doing. But that can't be helped. It's part of her journey of being a human and having to be a part of the human race. Interacting with people we like, and more often than not, with people we don't like hones particular abilities, and disabilities, within our personalities. I can only hope that she understands that failure *is* an option when it comes to growing up.
As for me, I feel I've grown not enough. I've been, as usual, lamenting my poor decision to get a bachelor degree in accounting. I've been graduated since 2007 and have nothing but $42,000 in school loans to show for it. The beginning of the recession was starting when I graduated, and the accounting job I had at the time didn't care if I had a degree or not. So I made a lazy lateral move into another department because I couldn't take one more day of processing payroll for a bunch of self-important, overpaid fuck-faces. I was subsequently laid-off from my lazy lateral job, which was fine because the boss of that department was an elitist, arrogant asshole. However, the salary was great! $40,000 a year great, but the work was horrible and depressing.
When I think about how I should have sucked it up and stayed in the accounting department just for the money, considering all the debt and money woes I have now, I still think I made the right choice to get away from there. It was like earning money to keep quiet about how poorly the company was managed. It was blood money. I know that's dramatic, but that's what I've come to realize it equated to.
So now I barely earm enough in take home pay to make it to the next payday. I can't afford to pay my student loan monthly payments, $325, and have requested deferments and forebearances, which I get but the interest never stops acrruing. Never. Ever.
If I had a time machine, I would go back to 2003 and tell myself, "Don't do it! Don't waste 4 years getting a degree that no one will care about! Don't sacrifice the time with your daughter and your own life to appease people who won't be around in 4 years to help you succeed. Just don't do it."
And so I do not advocate higher education. I've been working since I was 14, and in that 25 years one thing has been clarified to me over and over. It's not what you know, it's who you know.
What I do know now is that I should have stuck to my writing as that's the person I want to be. A writer.
I also want to go to Disneyland at least once a year.
