Cakes and books

I heard from an older and wiser woman that you couldn't make any real career mistakes until you were 30. I'm 27. I feel as though I'm at a sort of impasse in my work life. I've been doing the same job for five and a half years. I'm good at it. I'm really good at it. Five years of honing in on a specific skill will do that.

But it's a long time to be doing the same thing. And it seems that when the rare opportunity arises to advance, it's a mirage in the desert. I get close enough and it disappears. I've capped out my salary, too. I've got great stamina to work a job without getting bored. But give me over five years with some disappointments that crush my motivation and what I have is a career dilemma.

I have dreams. Not goals. Goals would suggest I'm actively working towards making things happen. I have dreams.

Dream one: To write a graphic novel. I already have the right story to tell. I have a measly six pages complete. I have no place to work on it. Strangely and sadly my best motivational time of day is when I'm working my job and can't take three hours to sit down and work out a page layout.

I think it was Virginia Woolf who said every woman who writes needs her own room. Or something like that. Virginia was on the right track, but I think one needs more. Virginia didn't have to work at a computer for a living. I sometimes wonder how JK Rowling wrote Harry Potter in a cafe in her spare time with a sleeping baby.

Dream two: Bake and decorate cakes. I love baking. I live in an apartment with practically no kitchen. It's a struggle to make quiche. Making sweets makes me happy and cake is my favourite. I've travelled distances and agreed to parties on the assumption I will get some cake.

I'm an artist. Inherently, it's a part of who I am. Designing unique cakes would be art. It'd be enjoyable and challenging. I have no room in my home or bank account to make this happen. And yet today I looked up cake classes, the prices, the dates and times.

I'm 27 years old. I'm unmarried and childless. I don't own a home. It makes no sense to think that I'm stuck in any kind of job. I wonder why I feel like I am.

I don't get no, dun na na, satisfaction

I had a poor day of work today. I won't get into it too much, because I don't want to reveal my company or whathaveyou, but it was a trial. The subject matter of the show I worked on was painfully boring and obnoxious. Most days my job makes me happy. But today I entertained thoughts of sweet, sweet death. And tomorrow is to be more of the same, only a larger quantity of awful.

My evening has been spent napping, eating chocolate, watching shows I missed this week and feeling crabby. I regress a little when I'm grumpy or have had a bad day. Actually, I regress a lot. I really wanted to kick my feet on the ground like I did when I was a child. That would have felt great.

The day wasn't meant to be a good one, though, not even from the moment I woke up. Smokey got me out of bed early this morning with incessant meowing. Turns out he took exception to a dirty litter box. I took exception to the mess of poo he left on the floor. And just last Tuesday he missed the litter box and urinated all over the floor in the bathroom.

Basically, it's been a rough day. I'm pretty sure tomorrow I'm not going to want to wake up. If I were a bad employee, I'd call in sick. Blarghgh.