Pink Ponies

In miracle of all miracles, some things have been falling into place, well at least in my mind that is.

When the blindfold is pulled off your eyes and denial as a way of life no longer is a viable option, it's like learning to live with a completely new sense. Everything hits a little harder. The normal beatings we all take aren't as easily shaken off and it is much harder to ignore truths, no matter what they are.

Case and point. I have a tendency to get really excited about something I think is going to be perfect, and then get really disappointed when it fails to bring the assumed abundance I had believed it would. I'm like a 6 year old at a birthday party that just found out she didn't get the pink pony she wanted. Bastards.

Even worse, instead of accepting the reality as it is, dealing with the loss and moving on to some other bright and shiny object, I do the worst possible thing and try to change reality. I think if I stare at the spoon long enough, it really will bend. Um, not so much. And eventually, if the spoon doesn't bend, I do. I never needed or really wanted a pink pony. I can settle, really. Soooo much denial.

At 20 years later and too big for pony, I find myself having to deal with loss in a real and competent way. If things don't turn out the way I want them, what are my real options? This brown cow is not going to magically change and I am not going to magically stop wanting a pony, so how am I going to go deal with this? I revert to my six year old ways as I stomp my foot proclaiming "I was NOT taught these skills!"

Case and point: my job. Don't get me wrong, I am so thankful for my paycheck. I mean really, really thankful, but there are days when I literally think a monkey could do my job. Even worse so, my boss' treat me that way, or at least lately have. It's degrading. And I hate it.

That's the thing though. Something clicked deep down that hadn't ever before. It's not what you are doing, it's how you are treated in the midst of it. One of my boss' could ask me to wash and wax his car and I wouldn't mind at all. The other one acts as if my job title isn't Executive Assistant, but Personal Slave. Look, if I wanted to be treated badly, I would have stayed married.

This whole new way of thinking, this lack of denial and acceptance of a truer reality, has stirred some things up. Why do I take it? The title may be great on my resume giving me some access in the future, but what was promised in the beginning is rapidly becoming a game of cat and mouse. Um, so basically I'm in a repeat of the most hellish year of my life but professionally rather than personally. Wait, I've seen these signs and I'm not okay with where this is going.

If I had it all over to do again, what would I do different, because right there is where I have to start.

Mainly, I would stop feeling like a beggar and start feeling like a chooser.

What is the fear here? That this is my only option for the rest of my life? Jobs have always been easier to come by then men, so even though the anxiety is founded, it can hardly be seen quite as seriously. Browsing the want ads for the two are very different things.

But in some ways, they relate. I can look at myself and say two things 1) how is this helping get to where I want to go and 2) why do I think I have nothing to bargain or leverage?

I have struggled with how much I have "pandered" to people in my life, or felt as though I was less than. As I look at my professional life and I am watching my boss' ask me to do things I was not hired to do, or give me tasks that are meaningless and in no way challenging or even within my job description, I contemplate the pros and cons of giving in and settling.

I took the job with the expressed idea in growth potential, in a 50/50 between professional and personal and with their desire to bring someone into more of a decision maker role. Awesome. That befits a woman with a good degree from a top-notch school and the sort of experience I have. Not to mention the sheer desire to work hard and excel. Five months into the job and I am actually answering phones again? Um, sorry fellas, I draw the line somewhere. I have proved myself trustworthy, innovative, detailed and more than efficient in my problem solving abilities. If that is not enough, then I'm not sure what will be.

Believe it or not, I have standards. I know, it hasn't always looked that way, but hey, I'm learning. And I have goals. As I write out my monthly check to Sally Mae, I need to feel this was worth it's weight in interest. At this moment, that is not the case.

My pink pony turned into a frigging brown cow and now I have to figure out what to do with it. May be slaughter time. Who knows, I may be able to sell of the meat making enough profit to buy myself the pony. All I know is, this isn't going to magically change, but that doesn't change the fact that what I need is still what I need.

If only I had learned these principles back before I tortured myself needlessly for a year. Instead of trying to ride a cow down Main Street, I could have been eating T-Bone from that disaster for years.