Nineteen

Just like everyone else, I'm watching the manhunt for the 2nd Boston bombing suspect unfold. It has finally sunk in that this guy is 19 years old. NINETEEN years old. Who, at 19, has so much anger toward a country that they go through the effort to plan and execute a bombing at a world-renown event? This is not to mention the aftermath of it: the running and playing hide-and-seek, and the willingness to die, defending his cause. He's still a teenager. He's barely a legal adult. He's a college student. How can one really have so much hate against a world he hardly knows?
I'm a bad example of what 19-year-olds should be worrying about. At 19, I was planning a wedding. I hardly knew myself, let alone how to be a wife.
At 19, you should be focused on college, making new friends, learning how to survive in a working world, eating Ramen noodles 5 nights a week, rushing home on weekends to ask your mom to do your laundry, figuring out relationships....all the things it takes to emerge into adulthood. Who knows enough about anything to even develop the desire to end other humans' lives for the sake of some extremist principle?
In a way, I feel sorry for the young man who thought there were no other alternatives. It is sad that he will never know the opportunities this country could have allowed him. It is sad that death and injury resulted from his actions. However, the notion that building bombs and killing complete strangers -- adults and children -- who have nothing to do with him is completely idiotic. Violence of any type never solves anything, nor does it ever get any point across. I just cannot fathom the type of passion it takes to want to kill innocent people....especially at 19 years old.
My heart goes out to the families of the victims of this absolutely senseless act. I don't know if you'll ever find peace in this, but I hope you are able to continue to live moving forward.

Spring Cleaning

SPRING! Where have you been?! We have missed you.
Every year when spring gets here, I get the itchy urge to purge stuff. Today, I spring-cleaned my job and left Avis after almost 7 months of enduring some of the most torturous days I've ever encountered.
#1. I am not a salesman. I do not have the personality to bullshit my way through a transaction and hope my customer doesn't catch on to my tactics.
#2. I did not get paid to take verbal abuse. I have never met so many snobs in my entire life. It's just a rental car, people. It is not that serious.
#3. It was extremely difficult for me to take direction from managers that I had a hand in training....and that are nearly a decade my junior.
 #4. I became amazed at how much gall people had to be able to look me in the eye and tell me a bold-faced lie. Empty promises are abundant at Avis.
#5. How much value do you place in your employees to force them to work asinine hours, including holidays? Sure, the travel industry is a 24-hour business, but even the pilots go home on Christmas. Jeebus.

However, while I could go on making a list of the absolutely absurd facets of this job, I will transition to some of the good that came from it. I have met some incredible people. There were a few delightful customers that trickled in, but unfortunately, they became fewer and farther between.

I will also miss most of my co-workers...I made friends there. While I will be able to stay in touch with them all (thanks to modern technology), it will surely not be the same. We spend 75% of our lives at work and with the people in it, so naturally, we become this sort of weird, functionally dysfunctional family. We've laughed together, yelled at each other, cried together, cussed each other out...we've been through a lot together. Nothing will take the place of the personal connections I have gained.

I'm in a much happier, more stable place. I am making new friends and learning a new job at Carmax, but I finally have inner peace. I am finally in a place where recognition and encouragement are abounding, and I will never run out of cars.

I feel good (na na na na na na na)....work-life balance is an awesome thing. I can sleep like a normal person (no more 5 a.m. shifts!) and I will get an occasional weekend off. I can spend time with my ever-growing family, who continually support me despite my constant indecision and soul-searching. I can rely on a more stable income to save up for Phil's arrival (scheduled for next summer.) Life is just way more gooder....now if I can only get this house spring-cleaned....