I'm awake!

It has been well over a year since I've written a word in this blog and for that dear friends, I am sorry. I'd love to say I was off traveling the world, so busy discovering life and love and happiness that I just didn't have the time to write, but that just wouldn't be the truth. The real truth is I had to grow up and get a job, and well....it's sort of the worst.

I used to watch tv and see all these beautiful women as lawyers or police officers or doctors and I thought that it was what I wanted. I wanted to be respected and powerful and successful, but what they don't show you on tv is what it's like to be at the bottom....or if they do I've been watching the wrong shows. Because a tiny hourly salary with zero vacation time and enough overtime to ensure I never go out on a Friday night again in my twenties seems to be all I have to look forward to these days and I am tired of it and it has me wondering...what is the point?

I did all the right things to set myself up for this "corporate dream." I worked hard, had paying jobs, endless internships, and I volunteered. I graduated with honors and a degree that I'm proud of and yet here I am...just a little north of miserable and a lot south of happy. But more and more I'm realizing it's not the job that has me feeling unhappy. I'm thrilled to be employed, supporting myself, paying off my debts - it's the path I'm taking that has me questioning the whole reason I'm living to work instead of working to live.

There's something backwards to me about working hard while you're young to enjoy life when you're old. I want to enjoy life always, not just when I've "earned it." I want to travel and see things before I get burnt out and senile. I want to go away for a month without worrying about my student loan debt or how I'm going to pay my rent all the way from Argentina or Croatia or Australia. People keep telling me I'll get used to it. That soon I'll have two weeks of vacation time saved up and then I can travel and that just breaks my heart. I don't want to get used to it. And what can one accomplish in barely two weeks? I need years to see the world and not the years after I retire when I have arthritis in my knees and crippling back pain and a slew of other health issues that come from old age (yes I'm being dramatic, but you never know). I need to see it now when I have 20/20 vision and no real responsibilities to anyone other than myself.

So dear friends, I am seeking advice. How do you cope with the daily grind? How do you balance work and play? And finally, if you've been able to accomplish building a life that lets you do what you want when you want, please let me in on your secrets, I'm dying to know.

XO,

Em