Less traveled

I am never settled.

Sylvia Plath once compared indecision to a fig tree. Sitting astride the branches with her future resting on every fig an option was presented to her. On one fig, a marriage and a future with a husband and children. Another fig carried the accolade of a career as a famous poet. A fig that prescribed a destiny as a brilliant professor also branched from this giant tree. The tree stretched skyward as far as her eye could see. There were figs upon figs and with every fig another option. Unable to make a decision, Plath rested in the crotch of the tree starving to death as the figs wilted away and fell from the tree carrying her future rotting to the soil below. For choosing one decision, would ultimately lead to the dismissal of another.

This image has taken up residence in the front of my brain for the last few months.

I went through college indecisive, as typical of most undergraduate students. I wanted to be a child psychologist, a forensic psychologist, a social worker. I settled with a major in my junior year that would allow me a broad range of options once I slammed headfirst into the corporate world. My ultimate choice was to go into social work- a field that had always fascinated me, in the same curiosity that compels a passing driver to scrutinize the aftermath of a car accident.

I would like to say that I have a heart for helping people and the greatest reward I have is knowing I have impacted the lives of children and families in a positive manner. I have met many great people in this field that have such a heart. I, however, am not one of those lucky ones. I do feel a sense of intrinsic reward knowing that what I do is a step in the right direction. I've listened to the stories shared of adults who were once in foster care themselves and came out unscathed and are now using their history as a platform for education. I enjoy knowing this and yet I still cannot find my place among those who serve so effortlessly.

I never meant to end up in the corporate office. My original intention was to become a care manager and explore this world of inadequate parenting and perhaps become a hero to someone. I ended up here by chance, a random job opening in a field I had a background in. I took the job because it seemed like a logical choice and a good 'recent college graduate' position. Had I known the bureaucratic ways of corporate operation and the monumental flaws in Florida Dependency legislature, I may not have placed myself here. A place in which I feel like I am fighting a losing battle everyday with people who are uptight and stressed, ready to snap at the nearest victim. Here, where deadlines are like the cloak of death hanging over every shoulder waiting to smother the life out of those who miss them. Where I have become desensitized in such a way that an abuse report alleging parental drug use doesn't seem really quite so bad.

After a year of work, I knew that perhaps this work was not best suited for me. I took a teaching test and became temporarily certified to teach English in Florida. Resumes were sent, job fairs were attended and only one call received. The one interview I went on was an awful waste of time as I was competing with applicants far more versed in the instruction of English than I was. I consider it a blessing in disguise that I was not hired that day. As embarrassed as I am of having struggled through the entire interview- it made me step back a moment and consider the commitment I was about to make. Did I really want to teach? I don't even like children. The answer was 'no'. I just wanted out of my current position and teaching had always seemed like an obtainable alternative.

I've lost that drive, that compulsion to work in this environment. I have preserved through my feelings of inadequacy and days dripping with boredom. My halfhearted efforts were rewarded with a promotion that I did not deserve. Yet, I still sit in this office crazed with the desire to shut it all out and let the blank page of paper become my life. I sit stranded on my own fig tree, cradled in the safe grip of it's bark unable to pick a single fig to become my own.

So. I've decided to go back to school for an undetermined amount of time. Studying has been the one constant in my life. Something I have always enjoyed and felt safe in doing.

Against the advice of pretty much everyone I know, including one former professor who I still keep in touch with, I am working towards a second Bachelor's degree. I'm not ready for a graduate program now. The M.F.A. and M.A. programs I am interested in are all in the north east and I am not financially in a place I can afford a move that intense (not to mention a court order that keeps my feet firmly planted in Florida soil). I don't feel developed enough to compete with the mass of applicants that flood the available 10-20 spots in most programs. And most important, I feel as though I have finally reached a place in my personal life (aside from work) where I can breath. The divorce is over. My life has been restored. I want to take time to enjoy that space before reality sinks in once more.

I will still work at my current job. I don't dislike this job, it is a HUGE source of contention for me yet ironically, it still soothes me. Having a stable job and one that pays well is a major plus right now in this slow economy and I feel fortunate to have what I do have. I will work and go to school.

And my fig leaves will continue to drop, as I desperately watch the chances of my life rot away. Only now I know, once that fig has fallen to the ground I will have the ability to dive after it.