This week I've only worked about half the hours as I normally would. Why? No work. Today, everyone but the salesmen stayed home. It doesn't bode well.
What does bode well? On Tuesday a customer I was doing a job for asked me for a price on a thing. I looked at it and figured out that it was a custom built piece of equipment and that it would take some work building a duplicate. So, I took measurements, took pictures, drew a diagram and gave it to my boss. Yesterday, Thusday I asked him if he had a price so I could get back to the customer. My boss was less than enthused and wanted nothing to do with the project. I don't fault him. He has been blamed, latley, for things going wrong that, I think, went wrong in the sales process long before they landed on his desk. He only wants to do what he knows how to do and doesn't want to do anything unless he knows he can do it quickly and make a lot of money. He said to me "We don't do that kind of work. We don't sell stuff like that". But, unknown to me, the owner of the company was standing behindme and said, "We are in the business of selling anything anyone wants to pay us for." So, the project was put into my hands. I've been getting prices for supplies together, thinking about the manufacture process, and talking to the one man in our comapny who I think can do the job. I think the company will make about 70% gross profiton this job. It fun to work with a spread sheet again after several months of not using one.
The principle of the school my boys go to is an ex officio member of the School Site Council, which decideds how to spend certain moneys. He and I are at loggerheads over whether or not he has the right to change meeting dates and times. One of the teacher members of the Council totally does whatever the principle wants to do (he is her boss so it makes sense), the Chairman of the Council (a parent member) is good but seems more interested in what the Council spends money on than in how the Council operates. The other, members of the Council are, I think, more like the Chairman, and don't think constitutional questions are very important. I on the other hand, think questions of procedure and powers are paramount, for they decide everything else. Oh, how I love a good parliamentary battle!
I am still working on that M.A. degree. And I am looking for other work. Something that pays more money and is less dangerous. (I won't even tell you about the crazy dangerous stuff I did Wednesday.)
More and more I am wondering about the rest of my life. It is clear to me that I am never going to do anything great. I'm not going to be a farmer. I'm not going to have any of the careers I had once hoped to have. Not in advertising, not in city planning, not in farming, not in law, and not in the priesthood (canonical barriers to that last one). And, everthing that is within my realm of possibilities I have already done. It is likely that I will live into my seventies. That's thirty years of... what? I am remided of that song by John Cougar Mellancamp. The one with the line "... Oh, yeah, life goes on, long after the thrill of living is gone." I didn't understand that song when I was 15. I understand it now. I don't think I am having a midlife crisis. I'm not even sure what that is. I just can't figure out what else I am supposed to do. I mean, other than stick around 12 more years for my kids. But after that, what? Maybe, if I had been able to go to any of the Lenten services this year I would be feeling differently. Maybe, I'll feel differently when the boys are grown and gone. I'll be free-ish, but will I be to old to do anything? Even if I have the money to buy a farm my body tells me I am too old for that. Does my Church have anything for old laymen to do? Do we have lay missionaries?
I think I'll do some more homework now.
15 hours ago
4 comments:
Man, that last paragraph sounds really familiar, I was having a lot of those same thoughts, especially thinking about that song, about this time last year.
The good news is that it took you this long to understand Mr Mellencamp's lyrics.
What am I going to do? Career seems unlikely. Motherhood seems unlikely. So for now I just try to be a loving wife and friend. That'd be an excellent epitaph.
I like what Janelle said. Be good at what you are doing...and what you are doing is being a student. Do that well, my friend. Finish what you started and then move on to the next thing - whatever that may be.
My husband has often said that when he turned 30 or 35 doors started closing and he began to realize there were some dreams that would never be realized. I think that is part of the mid-life "crisis" (if you want to call it that)- it's part of the maturing process.
If you think of the funerals that you have attended over the years you will realize that the most impressive legacies are of people who honored God with their lives by serving their families both physically and emotionally and by loving others with a passion. That is true success in this life!
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