Impatient and Decisive, Not Always the Best Combo
I like to think of myself as a decisive person. I don’t linger over choices for too long – what color the bedroom should be, how many towels we need, what appetizer to order. I don’t like to linger over major decisions either – when I was offered a job in Nashville, I accepted it over lunch without even asking for 24 hours to think about it. I didn’t know anyone in Nashville, the pay wasn’t enough, but it was the only offer on the table (sorry for another bad pun), so in the span of about 45 seconds, I said “yes.” The SO knows that if we are faced with the end of the world, I want to see it through to the end. There will be no suicide or standing on the beach before the tidal wave for me. (I made that choice in about 20 seconds while watching some asteroid movie, and I don’t intend to go back.)
(Now, there are a few decisions I can’t, and probably never will make, but that has more to do with knowing myself than anything else. Never ask, “If you ever got a tattoo, what would it be?” My answer is that I would never get a tattoo. I have commitment issues, and I’m certainly not putting something permanent on my body when I’m usually tired of my “favorite sweater” after about four days.)
Truth be told, maybe it’s not that I’m decisive, it’s just that I’m impatient. I don’t like lingering, considering or going back and forth. If a wall color doesn’t work, repaint it. If a college doesn’t work, transfer. Can’t pick between two different colored sweaters? Buy both and return the other. (It also helps to only shop at stores with liberal return policies, save receipts and keep pertinent essays on file should you choose to live your life in this manner.)
Awhile ago, I decided that I would rather regret the things I did than the things I didn’t do, so I have a very hard time with the idea of opportunities passing me by. I once flew across an ocean because of an “I miss you." (In addition to saving receipts, one should also be prepared for a little heartbreak with this approach to life.)
Many of the decisions I do make, while they might seem impetuous, have been running around in my head for months, and thanks to the Internet, I can do lots of research before having to present a plan to potential nay-sayers.
A few years ago, after a lay-off and a bad break-up, I decided to get out of dodge. I took some money from a savings account and found a sub-let on an apartment north of Wrigleyville in Chicago for the rest of the summer.
By the time I had my plan in place, I approached my parents with a very familiar phrase, “Here’s the thing …”
After 20+ years, they’ve come to expect that this intro means I will either be relocating, changing schools, tearing down walls in my home, heading to a foreign country or possibly in need of bail (only kidding on that last one, knock on wood).
Yet, this past Saturday, I was a near wreck at Lowe’s when I couldn’t choose a color for the kitchen walls. I wanted chocolate brown, burnt red or some shade of orange, and the SO had to intervene.
“Remember,” he said, “when it comes to resale, most people like neutrals.” Not only was I reminded that I’m weird (I love color, what can I say?), I also became lost in a world of tans, taupes and sands. And if anything drives me crazier than cell phone rings that are animal sounds, it’s being unable to make a decision.
After 30 minutes, I let the guy who mixes the paint at Lowe’s make the call. “I’d go with that one,” he said. “It’s a little dark for my taste, but I like how plain it is.”
Plain? Plain? I took the paint and hung my head in shame.
Unfortunately, while this breakdown at Lowe’s probably should have been expected, it’s the harbinger of what to come when I can’t make choices that worries me most of all.
As sure as I can be when I’m making most decisions, there’s nothing like a little bout of depression to make me start questioning each and every one of those decisions – nearly dating back to whether or not I gave up the pacifier too soon.
When I was pretty sure I needed to transfer colleges, I didn’t just worry about the choice I’d made for school. I worried about the job I’d taken summer after my senior year of college, if I should have applied to schools further away from home/closer to home the year before, if I should have taken pre-cal my junior year rather than skipping it for straight-up calculus, whether Habitat for Humanity would have been a better club to join than Key Club.
After college, when I hated my job it was whether or not I should have studied abroad, where I should have studied abroad, if I should have majored in history instead of government, if I stopped taking French classes too soon, whether or not living off campus my senior year was the best choice, if I should have tried to make more friends, if I went out too little, if I went out too much.
Whenever my life doesn’t seem to be quite what I’d like it to be, rather than finding the strength to make a plan, get on a path and start working towards a new goal, I seem to need to spend at least two weeks questioning exactly where I went wrong in the 20 years beforehand.
Right now, I’m wondering if I sabotaged my career (forever, by the way) by never having lived in New York. If you want to write, you go to New York, right? You meet other writers. You spend long hours at magazines writing paragraphs that get torn apart and never carry a byline until someone lets you interview George Clooney and suddenly your piece is the cover of Esquire? True?
I was reading the memoir Please Excuse My Daughter this week, and when the author talked about the professional photo shoot for her contributor photo, all I could think about was how I’ve been on two contributor pages, and I had to crop my friend out of a beloved photo because it’s the only picture I think my hair looks nice in. I’m hardly complaining about the exposure and breaks that I have gotten, but I seemed to have missed a turn somewhere.
Even Chicago or L.A. would have probably been a good idea. If it’s not what you know, but who you know, what have I been doing all this time?
When I spent the summer in Chicago, I had a call back from Playboy for an fact-checking position, and I jumped on it. (They really do have articles.) By the time the editor-in-chief called me back (Wednesday to Friday, by the way), they’d already found someone for that job but wanted to “keep my resume on file.” That’s the last I heard from them.
Then again, when I have lived in bigger cities, it nearly drove me insane. Living in big cities is great – when you’re not poor. New York, Chicago and L.A. are meant for people with money. While it’s wonderful to have the world at your fingertips, if you have about $12.00 in expendable cash each month, there’s not a lot to do.
Plus, I think it should take less than three hours to go to the grocery store, less than 30 minutes to park and under an hour and a half to get home from work.
The big cities and I probably wouldn’t have made it together, but I still can’t help but think about it from time to time – would I still be toiling away in obscurity if I’d gone to New York at 21? Will I toil in obscurity forever? Does it matter? Maybe it’s not the place. Maybe it is the talent. And, if that’s the case, I have even more to worry about.
So, while I cannot offer any career advice to anyone (except to return editor’s phone calls immediately, even if it doesn’t work out, and not to turn down Oprah, ever), hand me a gift registry to choose from or ask what to read next, and I’m the gal with a quick answer.