This is the time of the year where everyone tries making promises they know they can’t keep. But this year is going to be different for me because my new year’s resolutions are life or death — do or die. Currently I am a college graduate who is working in a field I didn’t study for, vying for a career with limited openings, and sacrificing my health in the process.
Let me clarify a few things. My current job is pretty awesome. I work with some pretty neat people; at a job that’s ranked as one of the top employers for its treatment of its employees (I believe the only company ranked higher than my current employer is Angie’s List). It’s great job with a lot of amazing benefits, but I look around and see people who have worked here for nearly half of their lives, and that’s just not where I’m at. I don’t want to get complacent. I don’t want to get comfortable. This is not job I want to make into a career.
I get anxious just walking to my cubicle sometimes. Will I become just another clog in the corporate system; that ends up resenting his life during an episode of a midlife crisis? I’m restless and I know I’m going to eventually have to quit, but even though I consider myself to be an amateur film maker at heart, I wouldn’t allow myself to become just another starving artist. I want to support myself — although I do still live with my mother (the rent is so cheap it’s practically “free”). Don’t judge me. I just graduated in 2013, I’m doing the economically responsible thing by sitting back and collecting my coins.
But when it comes to my health, more specifically my weight, it’s been an up and down roller-coaster for years. Back in high school I had lost over 100lbs. I had a glow of celebrity that stuck to me the first couple of days back at school. It was a gradual process [the weight loss], but when I ushered into my senior year I came back with a vengeance. The whole shock of having a new body was surreal to me.
People would complement me, which was new, but it wasn’t as bewildering as when they would gawk over me. Was my transformation that extreme? I also noticed more advances from some of my peers who in the past wouldn’t have even given me a second look. I was drowning in clothing I use to consider tight and for some odd reason someone at the school newspaper thought I was a big enough deal to write an article about me. It was only a high school newspaper, but that was still pretty awesome. I still have it. But after all the fanfare died down and I enrolled into college, I was just one in a crowd of thousands. I began falling back into bad habits like: late night snacking, eating to quail boredom, and finding myself in social situations where I would just consume way too much. And some of that consumption didn’t always come in solids. And when it was all said and done I had gained back my weight — plus more.
Now I’ve tried countless times to return to my former glory but I’ve always fallen short, but this year will be different. I’m dropping the extra tire around my waist and I’m going to pursue my dreams come Hell or high water. I’m saving up my coins to make a feature length independent film and planning to head to California and leave my stamp on Hollywood.
So follow me on my journey, all 365 days of it.
