Sit down you're rocking the boat

When will your life start being what you imagine it to be?

These are the words that were on my lips when I woke up this morning. It is not unusual for me to talk in my sleep, however I am pretty sure this is my most profound slumbering utterance.

I lay in bed staring at the ceiling and just repeating those words over and over in my head. I dragged myself to the shower and kept muttering it out loud while I conditioned my hair. I mulled it over slowly as I rifled through my closet for a dress to wear. As soon as I got to where my purse was with my notebook in it I wrote it down so I wouldn't forget it during the distraction of my morning.

This was important.

Last night we went to Open Stage  to visit with the circus freaks and watch my kid perform. It was a nice low energy evening that was fun, and yet as we were driving home the husbeast noticed that I was visibly unhappy. I told him I was just tired considering it was 11 at night, but that wasn't really it.

I am tired. I am exhausted in fact. I am just not worn out so much as worn down. I have come to the sad realization lately that work is sucking out my soul. Every day as I sit in my grey little cube it makes me a little less happy with my world.

I don't have a difficult job. I am a Data Analyst, and if that sounds boring to you then you have a good grasp of what my job is. It is tedious and dull and there are vast amounts of time where I have little to no work to do. That being said it is really pretty damn easy, it pays fairly well, and I am given a lot of freedoms in a very relaxed atmosphere. It would sound like the good out weighs the bad as far as jobs go, especially in our current economy.

The thing is that no one cares what I do. No one. My bosses don't care, my coworkers don't care, hell we have been told our clients don't even care. No one cares if our data is good or bad. No one cares if we release on time. No one cares if we do a half assed job. If it is wrong or if it is right someone will complain and we will fix it on the back end.

So why the hell am I here? Do you have any idea how unsatisfying it is to do a job that not one damn person cares about? I can't make myself care if no one else does. There is no sense of urgency or importance and no real sense in any of it.

There are also some other environmental factors in the office that eat away at me daily. Mostly it is having to listen to customer service reps take calls all day long. Not only are these individuals rather negative in attitude, but their calls only involve disgruntled consumers. If you have ever worked in customer service you know those calls will break you down faster than any other. That is all these people do, and simply listening to their end of the conversation over the last 9 months has been breaking me.

I had been thinking I didn't want to go to work because of faire eating up so much time and having no time to do other things in my life. Faire has been done for nearly two months now and I am still fighting with myself every single morning to go to work. I fight with myself at my desk to actually do the work that no one cares about. I actually think I am miserable in my job.

It feels both freeing and sad to say that. I am so unsatisfied and that is a little frightening. I look at the woman who cleans our office and she is always smiling and happy and wanting to talk to you and help you out. I would rather have her job than mine. There is at least satisfaction in a clean toilet. I looked at a bus driver yesterday and actually thought I would prefer their job to mine, and I despise driving.

I went to bed last night intent on writing this post. I wanted to talk about my misery and dismay at my place in life just now. I am typically a happy shiny optimist, but I am having trouble seeing the sunshine in this particular little storm. I wanted to get it out.

Then I woke up with those words on my lips: When will your life start being what you imagine it to be?

It suddenly wasn't about the misery and dismay anymore. I mean yes I am miserable and a bit dismayed about how I feel about my job, but that wasn't all. I am a firm believer in fate, but I am also a firm believer that anyone can change the stars if they truly are determined to.

I don't have to be miserable in this job. This job will never make me happy, and no I can't afford to just quit, but it is not forever. I can have more than this miserable job. I imagine my life to be so much more than what it is. I have a life that I imagine filled with the laughter of children, travel, fulfilling creative endeavors, a sense of satisfaction of a job well done.

All I have to do is go out and make that image a reality. It may take drastic changes, it will most certainly take some terrifying leaps of faith, and it will take a lot of thought, but I will accomplish it or at least have the satisfaction of knowing I tried.

So I am putting my life on notice now; I am not happy with it and things are going to change. It is time to upset the boat.

When will my life start being what I imagine it to be?
I am starting now.