Jacquelyn's Space

Not the good funk. The bad funk. As in I’ve been in a funk lately. A lot lately, like almost all the time. Well…I have been trying to get my house organized but I’ve been working slowly so I don’t get too stressed out. I was working more too til the summer hit and I thought I’d be taking care of my nephews. Alas, my brother or my parents have kept the boys most of the time. So I feel inessential though I really shouldn’t. My self worth should not be wrapped up in taking care of children. It is an old trick a woman’s mind plays on her whenever she is a caretaker. I have been taken in, falling for it as so many have before me.

But! I am trying to break out of that funk. My master closet is half way cleaned out, my bedroom a bit more organized. Only the rest of the house to do, haha. Oh yeah, the linen closet is halfway done too. These are my accomplishments. Blah!

I should have been looking for a better job. That comes next, maybe. I am afraid. I have a few friends, teachers mostly, that cannot find good employment. It scares me because I don’t even have a teaching certificate. Not that I want to be a teacher, but if I don’t have any certifications or think that I have few marketable skills (at least the ones that will get me something better than food service) what will I find? What am I qualified to do? I don’t know. Defeated before I really begin. Plus there are my nephews to think about. Taking care of them has been holding me back because I don’t have enough energy to do it all. Take care of them, my husband (and this house), and take on a full time job. I am going to try though. I just need to break out of this funk, and get my house fairly well organized so I don’t have to worry about that. Plus I can only hope that my brother is going to take his boys full time soon…

I hope. It is fairly possible. I think…

But! I am going to move on anyway. I feel like the boys are older now and I may be able to work full time and look after them too…I worked more hours at McDonald’s this past year and everything was alright. Sure, I didn’t have energy for much else besides work and the boys but I am going to keep trying.

But, I’d like to go back to school as well. Today I am proud of myself because I reapplied for admission to the graduate program I started but never finished. I have some incompletes (3 classes) I hope to be able to finish and then I just have 2 classes after that in order to have my degree. It is a MA in English…I could be an adjunct professor/instructor with that (if I can get the work). It is not really what I want to do but it may help me on my way to my other goals. Truthfully, I have been unsure if I want to even finish that degree but I think I do–I started it, might as well finish.

AND I am thinking about applying for the Accelerated Nursing Program (I emailed an advisor for an appointment today to see what I’d have to do to prepare)–a 2 year program in which I could earn my B.S.N and those all important certifications (or skills) to find much better employment. Of course, again, this is not what I really want to do but it will help me along to my other goals. It would just be a different route…and they always say the journey is the destination or reward. I like journeys, the more circuitous and scenic the better. Or at least they are more interesting.

My goals, they are pretty much the same but changing in little ways, perhaps growing. I don’t know…I feel pressed for time now though. I feel I am running scared. I feel I have wasted to much of my life taking care of everyone else and not taking care of me. But then again…the essence of my goal is to help people. I just wanted to do it outside of my own family, on a larger scale I guess. Perhaps that is my ego…well, that and I would like to earn (some) more money, ha. Unfortunately, money is an important part of meeting my goals.

AND unfortunately, being in funk makes me more prone to binging–binge eating and binge shopping. So that is where I am at lately. A huge circuitous funk….I hope to curl out of and begin a huge, circuitous journey, to both old and new places.