Life as Betsy

The sacrifices are going to have to not only by me, but by my family too and I cannot thank them enough. It is going to be months of doing without for all of us. Somehow, free haircuts, manicures and pedicures and facials for the rest of their lives doesn’t sound or seem like enough. I’ll have to figure out other ways to show my love and appreciation to them all.

And you should know that my temp to perm position turned out to be very temporary. Rumor has it, the entire Vancouver office may be closing, so I suppose its better that I was able to get out when I did. I am not mad at anyone, but am frustrated at the situation. See, my entire point in going to cosmetology school is to learn a trade that will get me out of the "office" setting and put a little more control  of my life and career into my own hands. So when a temp job that is seeming to be a perfect fit in every way goes away, well, it is frustrating to say the least.

I hate the feeling of being the new girl, the one who doesn’t know anyone, the one who is quite possibly about to make a mistake or five and the one who is definitely the most expendible. But everyone at some point starts out as the new person and with my extremely likable demeanor, I know I’ll have friends in no time.

I am quite thrilled that my start time is at 9am, which will be allowing for this lovely work out schedule to commence and though I’ll be working until 6 (at least on Mondays or until school starts in March), the offices are quite literally five minutes from my house and about a minute from the mall, Target and my parent’s place. Goodbye commutes. Goodbye traffic. If I need to, I have back roads to get me there and home.

So now, I need to start looking for the best student loan and apply for it. I have to be signed up for school by February 20th to make it into the March class. If I pay for the entire schooling up front, I save 20%. That’s like $1,100 dollars, ya’ll.

How is it that in three weeks of not working, I became so accustomed to the leisure lifestyle again? I really hope I fully enjoyed it. I won’t be feeling that way again for the next . . . 18 months.

    I realize I can’t be too upset or pissed about the entire Berg situation because it forced me to stop and look at my life and career and realize I don’t want to jump from shitty office job to shitty office job for the rest of my life. I want to do something creative and fun and calming, whether it be hair or skin and waxing. So I am now pushing myself to do something outside my comfort zone and get something worthwhile. In the end, I will feel so good about myself, have my cosmetology license and not be so limited in my options after this. I will be that much more of an asset to my friends and family with hair and skin and nail issues. I will finally have a better understanding of my own hair and how to style it. I’ll have a professional discount at beauty supply stores.

    I know its going to be hard work but I have alwasy felt like I missed out on the whole graduation from college experience. Chances are VSB doesn’t do any kind of ceremony, but I know my family and friends will help me celebrate.
   
    It’s not a law degree or a political science degree or a master’s degree. It’s not a name brand school or even a community college. It’s pretty mundane and generic - not the illustrious writing career I had once dreamt of but its a working career. Something I can improve on and be proud of and not have to attempt to make sound interesting. If I am really good and really determined I could build a great clientel and have a nice career.
   
    So once I am standing in a salon or a spa and no longer at the mercy of the MJ’s of the world - I’ll look back and be glad this all happened. Getting fed up with bogus discharge excuses has pushed me to take a chance and do something different. I know Dad is weary now, but once I have my license, he’ll be very proud of me. I look forward to that day.
   

Speaking of iPods, mine has been loaned to my husband indefinitely so he has something to listen to at work. I gave him a MP3 player for Christmas, only for it to crap out yesterday and we can’t get anything to load onto it now. Of course, he probably trashed the box and therefore, we can’t return it. So, he’s using mine, I’ll dig out my old cd player for workouts and we’ll set aside 25 a week until we have enough for an iPod Nano. He is graciously letting me get the new one and he’ll take over my old one. I do love this man.

I should mention that I had an interview earlier this week and did get the job. I am still working out the schedule with them, since I also chose a cosmetology school and found out my classes will be starting a 5 pm each night. In fact, if my schedule works out as I plan, my week will look like this for the next year and a half:

He grinned to himself and said "Yeah, but we’ll be coming home to each other and in the end, it will totally be worth it."

I know he’s right. Mike and I are about to embark on an extremely difficult and trying year for the both of us, but once we are done, we’ll have done so much for us, for our future, for our future children, it will all be worth it. Mike started back at his full time job with Oregon Heating on Monday and has decided to stay on at Vinnie’s Pizza as well. The Cocos are being so wonderful and letting him trim an hour off his schedule so he isn’t completely crunched for time between getting off one job and getting to the other. While he is doing that, I will be working full time during the day and taking night classes so I will hopefully have my license in a year.

But Saturday morning, I wanted to shed as much of the past as I could, so I started with a bubble bath and shaved for the first time of the new year.  (( I should mention that I am militant about shaving my armpits. What goes on below my knees during the winter months is not the same as my pits. Someday, I will have them lazered to be rid of the hair. I cannot stand it!!) Anyone who has done any reading up on shaving (whether it be in magazines as a teen or on the back of a shaving cream cannister) knows that with the hair usually comes a layer of dead skin cells too. So off came that dead layer and I felt somewhat refreshed. Renewed.

My hair appointment had been made Friday morning, but when I got to Gina’s Monday night and she kept saying to trust her and asking if she could do this, try this . . . I knew to just let it go and to let her work. I hadn’t had my hair trimmed since April. It was clearly time. Emerged from her chair was a new hairstyle, a new outlook, a new me.

Today, though it seems so small and silly, I took my car to be washed for the first time since right before the wedding. In these winter months here in the PNW, there is little point in washing your car if its only going to rain again in a few hours, or tomorrow at the latest. But after months, you have to wash it, just so you can open it without getting dirty yourself. I wanted to wash away the grime of the morning commutes and the evening traffic jams. I wanted to see the sun gleaming hope into my life again. And for the few hours we saw sun this afternoon, I felt it.

I am still working out the details and the kinks in my new game plan, but this is what I have come to. I knew that if nothing else, this was the wake up call that I need to try something else, push myself harder, further than I have in the past. I want to know that I have earned what I earn and that I am appreciated for what I do. So though its going to be hard for a couple of years, I am going to get into a local cosmetology school and get my license. Hopefully, I’ll be able to take evening classes, so I can work during the day and be able to help pay the bills. I am not sure if I will do hair or focus on skin and waxing, once I get my license, but I am going to get all the schooling so I can go either way. I have been interested in facials and skin and waxing since I started going to have those things done myself. My estitician is so cool and so relaxed and clearly loves what she does. I want that and I know that I would love doing this. And being someone who has always struggled with her hair, it would be wonderful to learn professionally how to do it and be able to put that knowledge into effect for my friends and future clients.

I am resilient.

From an early age, nothing has ever held me back or kept me down for more than a day or two. Like anyone, I do need my time to grieve or vent or be downright pissed off, but that time is short and soon, I am back to being bouncy, bubbly, big boobed Betsy. My parents have always admired this in me and I would be a liar if I said I didn’t admire it in myself.

I suppose my stages of grief would like anyone else’s. There’s the "Oh shit!" period to the "Why me?" period and then the "What am I going to do?" period (which is usually followed with another "Why me?" period). Then I start trying to remind myself of movie plots or tv situations where something similar happened and  how well that ended for the individual (i.e. I get a horrible short hair cut and lement of it for a bit. Then I watch an episode of 90210 and think Look! Tori Spelling has God awful short hair and she is rocking it! Chances are that my hair looked more like Kathleen Robertson’s than Tori Spelling’s). And then, I reach the period where I remind myself that everything happens for a reason, which I firmly believe, and I get over it. There is no need to let anything like this depress you to the point that you find yourself put on Wellbutrin or something like that.

(I realize and recognize that depression is a real thing and is far more complex than having a bad day and not getting over it. Its chemical levels in the brain. I am in no way saying anyone on medication for depression shouldn’t be.)

So I am already back on my feet emotionally and mentally. Ready to tackle the world again, so to speak. Sometimes, I think that things like this happen to break my spirit and make me question my very existence, but I try not to let myself dwell on thoughts like that. Doing so only lets the very people you don’t want to have power in your life have that power.

It helps that I have been listening to a lot of Sugarland these days. This is my current favorite of their’s.

Stand Back Up
By Sugarland

Go ahead and take your best shot,
Let ‘er rip, give it all you’ve got,
I’m laid out on the floor, but I’ve been here before,
I may stumble, yeah I might fall,
Only human aren’t we all?
I might lose my way, but hear me when i say,

I will stand back up,
Youll know just the moment when ive have enough,
Sometimes im afraid, and i dont feel that tough,
But I’ll stand back up,

I’ve been beaten up and bruised,
I’ve been kicked right off my shoes,
Been down on my knees more times than youd believe,
When the darkness tries to get me,
Theres a light that just wont let me,
It might take my pride, and my tears may fill my eyes,
But I’ll stand back up,

I’ve weathered all these stroms,
But i just turn them into wind, so i can fly,
What dont kill you makes you stronger,
When I take my last breath,
Thats when I’ll just give up,

So, go ahead to take your best shot,
Let ‘er rip, give it all you’ve got,
You might win this round but you cant keep me down,

‘Cause I’ll stand back up,
And you’ll know just the moment when ive had enough,
Sometimes im afraid and I dont feel that tough,
But I’ll stand back up,

I get these mixed emotions when I see that friends and former classmates are going back to grad school and I don’t even have my AA. I don’t specifically regret that I don’t have it, but I also feel that my life is less because of that. Less exciting, less worthwhile, less worthy. I know going to get it or a Bachelor’s or a Master’s degree just so that I feel more worthy is completely the wrong reason. Because I don’t know what I would want to do with my life other than kids and home. It is a fair arguement that if I did go back, maybe I would find something now. Being nearly 27, I think I could probably look at things differently than I did at 18. But even if school were the best plan right now, we are not in the financial situation where I could go back to school.

Do you know how frustrating it is to have so many people tell you that you have all these talents and skills and possibilities and not see it in yourself? Sure, I do that good and I can manage that and when pushed, I am damn capable of that. But all in all, I sometimes feel all I am good for is turn food into shit and oxygen into carbon dioxide.

Tonight is the pity party. Mike will try to cheer me up with homemade french toast and we’ll probably pop the bottle of Andre’s I bought last week for New Year’s. I’ll wallow and attempt to rally this weekend with the help of friends and old co-workers who feel for me. And then Monday, I’ll start looking for something to pay the bills.