Losing What's Left Of My Mind

May has been a whirl wind, gone every weekend and then this past Saturday our annual volunteer fire department supper. For those of you that don't know, Roman and I chair this event. This is his 20th year and my 15th, 11 as his co-chair. Everything went swimmingly, attendance was down, despite the increase in city population. I'm bummed that people don't have a sense of community and would rather just pay their taxes than come out and be social and get to know their fellow citizens, fire and police personnel and city officials. The food rocked, lots of compliments to the chef (that would be me), smooth sailing kitchen wise and the auction did quite well. Roman's company's donation did particularly well. Our chief was happy, so we are happy. Happy and very tired and sore. At one point my girlfriend Dawn stopped by to support us and was told she could find me crawling around under a table in the kitchen. Yep, there I was on all fours, apron and plastic gloves groping around trying to plug in food warmers. It's a glamorous job, but someone has to do it. It's not a success until I'm wearing a little bit of all the food we serve.

After Saturday I thought my summer was free. Free of any commitments and time to enjoy a slower pace, longer days and hours upon hours in the swimming pool. Thursday afternoon, my dream of freedom came to an abrupt halt. I got two calls from two different agencies I'd applied with last month. They both wanted me to come in for interviews this week.

I'm not your typical employee. You won't find me spending 20 or 30 years with an agency and eventually retiring because my age and years of service have maxed out. That's not me. I go somewhere, I become good at what I do, great in fact, move up, then move on. I can't see me doing the same thing for 20 years. Not ever! I'm 35 and I'm on my 2nd career. I can't be stagnant, I can't do the same thing day in and day out, I must be challenged, because I bore easily. To sum it up, there are tons of careers out there, why should I be forced to do one for my entire life? I want to do A LOT of things. I'd like to be chef, I'd like to own a bed and breakfast, I'd like to own a non profit agency. See? No pigeon hole for me.

My first opportunity is working with the district attorney's office of a medium size county as a victim's advocate. The other opportunity is working with adjudicated juveniles in a treatment setting. If I get either of these jobs I won't be able to talk about work here. It's a privacy thing. Not my privacy, but the privacy of the "clients" I'll be working with. Lets say I might be going back to my criminal justice roots and I've lost my mind. In my defense, I miss being a social worker, I miss helping people. The money is shitty, the hours long but the rewards can be great. I don't get that now and I miss it. So, I've done gone and lost my mind as Roman says. I am the biggest glutton for punishment. I should know something in two weeks to one month. In the mean time I need to get my transcripts faxed, my MMPI scheduled and drug tests done. I was finger printed today and they're starting on my background investigation. It's amazing what I'll do for shitty pay and county benefits, but I'm pretty excited.