Big Girl Jobs

Working part-time at the food co-op has provided me with everything that I wanted from a job when I returned to the United States. I work minimally, meet awesome people, and I still get a pay check every 2 weeks. Perfect. In fact, being in Santa Fe has given me the opportunity to live out my life in pretty much the most perfect way, for me - in my current mental space. Though it would be great to have a job where I made, you know, to make some "real" money (Real as in more than minimum wage for part-time work...haha, oh, full-time, there's an idea!), it is really awesome being able to work at such a laid back place with like minded folks and for the time, I dig it.

Today, while climbing up in the Jemez mountains, the mountain range that skirts Los Alamos, my adolescent retreat for hiking, camping, fishing, and socializing due to countless hours spent driving down intricate networks of dirt roads in cars borrowed from parents as we searched for elaborate party spots (outside of jurisdiction and away from forest service patrols), my friend asked me what I was trying to do once I returned from Korea. I thought - "Well, shoot. Coming back from Korea, eh? I guess there is just so much that I want to do still - school, classes, experiences, you name it, and I'm so young, that I'll just keep following my passions and see what happens."

I do want to get certified for this and qualified for that, travel here, and live there, but in the same sentence we joke about the luxury of having disposable income. This makes me start thinking to myself - do my life goals hinder me from ever getting on that road to, I don't know, stability? And, if I prioritize stability, does that mean sacrificing the 8 year old attitude I have in regard to my dreams and expectations for myself. Hey, I just want to go with the flow and do what I'm passionate about. Haha, in fact, it was just the other day that as my mom began to badger me about law school again and the possibility of me actually setting out a serious life plan, I responded by explaining my dream to convert a van into a mobile home and cruise around the continental United States. My poor mother. Yet, in all seriousness, due to the ambiguity of my course, I sometimes worry that I am at a crossroads, as so many others are at this age - twenty something and really just starting out on their own. There is an emphasis for people to settle down and get serious - like our lives belong to two different avenues - a crossroads between "the road" and settling down. Between travel and stability. Between part-time purgatory and career moves.

As a response to this whole big existential crisis, here's the deal with this whole living-in-the-real-world-thing, we don't know the end result of our decisions; we can't foresee our 80 year old selves reminiscing on "what-ifs" or dwelling on regrets, so how are we supposed to know what is best? For one, I believe that stuff makes people crazy, but all that we have right now are our whims and desires. I say, go after what's good - no matter what that is. It's all subjective, right? I know the road isn't for everyone and I also know that many of us have already made some pretty life altering decisions that make us feel like the time for dealing with all of this is in the past, if it can even be broken down to a two possible outcomes/a delineated fork in the road/a heads or tails kind of deal.

I guess what I've come to realize is that we are sometimes so hung up on tomorrowland, that we forget about what's going on around us. Working at the co-op has taught me a lot about people, about those from different walks of life, and has made me appreciate this city for what it has offered me. Though I'm still making minimum wage, am barely an adult, and don't have any real stability or possessions to speak of (hah!), by focusing on living passionately in Santa Fe, I have been thriving in this new environment and realizing that maybe it doesn't have to be a choice between one way or the other, that I can shun this socially imposed binary, and if I keep focusing on living out this life in my passionate, 8 year old way, big girl jobs might be in my future, but for now my priorities lie in meeting rad people and scraping by, and, I dig it.