New Years Resolutions, Curly GIrl Style

I've been doing a lot of thinking over the last week - while watching the antics of my mom and grandparents as the four of us tried to navigate the holidays together in a two-bedroom cottage - and while camping out overnight for the first time ever at the Rose Parade route in Pasadena - and while watching the rain pour down for three days straight in this desert city. (It's been an interesting week for thinking.)

After all of this pondering, I'm not sure if I've come to any conclusions.

Great punch line, huh? Let's back up for a minute...

I've only been in California for three months. I grew up here, but I went to college in the midwest and stayed there for several years after my graduation. Now that I'm home again, I'm looking for a job, trying to make some new friends and hoping to move out of my mom's house as soon as possible. Seems easy enough, right?

Wrong.

That part about "looking for a job" has been driving me crazy (which is the reason for my thinking over the past week).

Looking for a job in and of itself is not all that hard. I've done it several times before and I think I know what to expect. My problem is that I've done it several times before. (Translation: I've worked at several temporary positions and no "permanent" positions since leaving college.) I'm ready to get out of the temporary world and find a job that I can sink my teeth into, but frankly, that's frightening! I mean, what kind of job do I really want to try to get? And how much of a chance am I willing to take to try to land the kind of job that I want?

This whole curly girl thing has got me thinking that it's time for a change. It's time to stop settling for boring jobs out of fear that no one in their right mind would consider me for an interesting position. It's time to apply for jobs that I actually think I would like to do. It's time to stand up and admit to the world that I am a writer or an editor or whatever it is that I want to be. It's time to start labeling myself as an artist instead of just an art student! (Okay, that last bit was from one of those cheesy made-for-tv movies. I'm not really an artist...)

Thanks for listening to my little self-directed motivational speech. Tune in next time for some actual entertainment!