Motivation meltdown

Well I am having one of those days, where motivation seems to have flown the nest, but I actually made myself move off my lazy arse! I mean it is a feat I tell you. So I went for a run, the day after dry needling at physio, maybe not the best plan, as I feel I carted a dead leg around with me, so it possibly looked like a zombie run, but I did it. There are some days when leaving my sofa just doesn’t happen, even my sofa is moulded to the shape of me. I guess I am a contradiction in terms, I am someone who does everything one day and nothing the next. I put it down to balance to make me feel better, but sometimes I just don’t want to face the world, paint on a smile and actually speak to people!

At the minute I am, as some would say unemployed”, “job hunting” .  In other words I am that older woman (I really only feel 20) with no kids, who people look down on with pity as they think I am about to have a nervous breakdown, coz my life is so shit. In reality I have never “hunted” a job I have looked at millions and applied for a few. I just can’t be arsed to work, (there I said it). I started working when I was 15, so do the math that’s 22 years of my life in dead end jobs, some jobs I have loved and all with no real future I guess. I’m currently a expat, who moved coz of a fella, (oh she moved for love how sweet, not at all. I didn’t think it through and seriously underestimated living in another country and having to learn another language, the cultures and weird ways in order to just about survive.)

Since living here in The Netherlands, (for the record nothing like the chilled coffee shops of Amsterdam, with the excitement of the red light district, but so normal it is in fact boring. With cultural differences I will have to go into at another time) . I have realised that people are bloody judgemental and cannot understand the fact that once you have been to university you might not even end up working in that field. I mean I admit it I am disappointed I couldn’t make a living out of art and that I now have a sort of fear and loathing of the whole art world. I buy canvases and then I am too scared to make a start in case I am as disappointing as I think I will be!  You see here in NL kids go to school and have their lives mapped out for them in accordance to how bright, or dumb they are. I mean I think some of this is great, there’s way much more in terms of vocational stuff for kids. However I hate that people think we all belong in a sodding bracket. I mean t be fair on a good day I can be fairly impressive, on a bad day I look for my phone to send a text while I am actually talking on it and I go to the shop for bread and milk and come back with a new lipstick, a packet of cheese and whatever is on special offer, so how can you bracket that?

Coz of all of this I do have to say I have felt lots of pressure when I needed to look for a job, or apply for a job. I mean some of the questions I have been asked are amazing, especially when those questions come from some snotty nosed 17 years old recruiter on her internship. “So can you tell me why you have had so many jobs” . “Of course, can you see my age? Where I have lived? The fact I have relocated? The fact that I simply hated some of these shit jobs, but actually stayed so long to afford to eat? “ Then I think what is the point, because this near child has had no life experience and cannot understand my way of life, because I followed a path, that then I got lost on, due to my internal GPS getting lost, following empty dreams and promises and, guess what growing up to be someone I didn’t know I was going to be.  You see I am 37 (god I feel old when I say that, yet not like that at all) I am put into this category that as I don’t have kids I must be a hard faced career woman and yet I am neither. And you know what I am happy with being neither, being the round peg in the square hole and I really do not give a shit, if I could live off fresh air I would. I have done some jobs that no one else would do, some that were ok and none that I wanted as a career. I have worked with the general public and realised I don’t really like people and hate people with no common sense, but this doesn’t mean that I will never work with them again, because like me they also are all unique.  I mean what is the world’s fascination with other people and their lives? People say it is because of social media, which in a way is true, but think of our parent s and grandparents, they were also put into a category . Girls were taught cooking and boys were taught carpentry, so it is something that is in our culture, society and social make up. We are actually convinced that with all of the choices and with the lack of restraints we are progressing, but are we really? What if I just want an easy job, with no long term future? Where  I can just go to work, come home and not get stressed, does that make me less than the woman staying at home to look after her kids, the woman focusing on a career to better herself and prove she can, or even the woman who does all of that and more?  I personally don’t think it does. You see I have been that woman; and girl who tried to chase a career, who thought she needed to prove something to others and guess what I was unhappy and stressed. I now am relaxed and happy, just floating on by, being grateful for having time to read a book, watch TV. It is others that put pressure on me to change and strive to be their idea of “more”. I am here to say that life’s too bloody short to strive for the ideals of others, to put others first (even though I still do). Life is for living, before you know it, it will have passed you by…. Then what, what will we have to show? I for one will be able to say I started to live and not just survive.

Saying all of this and get rather deep and meaningful, I have to sign off now, as to validate my existence I decided that I would cook something from Jamie Oliver’s repertoire and we all know it will A. Not take 50 minutes, B. Won’t be as “quick and easy” as he reckons and C. I probably will have to go back to the shop (for a third time as I forgot the chicken for the chicken dish earlier!) coz, yeah I am likely to have forgotten something else. Just remember to live!