So all stories start from somewhere, for me the start of my chapter in child care began with some slight tragedy. In my senior year of highschool I was prepping for college, basically solo and I had already received my acceptance letter and was finalizing some of the paperwork and room assignment information. I was excited, I was going to study international business and Japanese. This was going to be my ticket to another dream, going to Japan! Shortly after I received my housing information I got hit: someone in my immediate family was terminally ill technically. I was gutted. And worse when I found out everyone else knew, I wasn’t told because they weren’t sure mentally I could handle it. I couldn’t share my excitement now, the rug had been pulled from under my feet while standing at the top of the stairs juggling chainsaws, I was done. I don’t remember if I handled the news well, and given how I am/was even if I fell apart on the outside, I was worse on the inside….
So I ghosted the school, more or less gave up on my dreams and kept all of this to myself for the longest time. I’m pretty sure I did not tell anyone then how much I actually gave up. But it messed me up. After hating life and basically just existing I enrolled into art school. Now when I was younger I loved to draw then stopped because my friends were better and I felt inadequate (which happened again a few times as an adult). I made friends, learned some skills and met who I was convinced was the perfect girl, but she was involved already. I was doing better mentally then, but I was a fake, I shouldn’t have been in art school, I wasn’t a real artist! For the school I was just another minority so they could get their quota. After some time I stopped seeing my friends regularly, they were ”real” artists and focused on their studies and the girl left due to financial difficulties. So again as I was pulling myself up I fell again. I couldn’t tell my parents I was depressed and stopped going to class, in hindsight I absolutely should have though. I basically killed time in the computer labs occasionally seeing a friend or two. Luckily with the internet I kept up with people, until I didn’t. By the time I finally came clean about art school I was only still talking to two people, my friend Mike and that girl I was smitten by, who today is my wife of 11 years.
After art school failed I tried to get a job but couldn’t, and one day my grand-aunt? Aunt once removed? My grandmother’s sister made me a proposition, she would help me get back into school (Community College) and would hire me to work at her daycare through this program school would be free for me. And that began my 11 year and some odd months career in daycare.
Today I’m a office manager which is far from the dreams of Japanese adventures I had, but I’ve learned a lot about myself The people that were sick are doing better and still in my life, made a lot of new connections, married who i can only describe as the perfect person to balance me out (I’m not saying that cause were married either, and she may see this either. It really is how I feel, I have had other female friends but I didn’t click with them like I do her). I also now have a home, life long friends, my blog and readers, life is good. I still have my struggles like we all do, but I really do have a wonderful life right now, and I didn’t need an angel named Clarence to teach me that.
I guess there is something to be said about that whole when one door closes another one opens or whatever. Well, easy come easy go.
~Owl
The World Through My Eyes 