eureka!

I have pretty much been a hot ass mess for the past week and I've been struggling to figure out why. Things have been crazy in the office and it's really making me miserable. There have been two constants in my life, things I've never ever really had to worry about - school and work. I can do school. I know how to study and prepare and I've always tested well. At work, I finish my tasks thoroughly and completely. I'm too much of a perfectionist not to. My personal life is pretty much always fucked up - I'm chronically single/unloved/unable to love and I go through periods of feeling lonely. I'm used to that. That I can handle, but I cannot handle trouble at work or in my academic life. Getting yelled at and all the other crazy things that are happening have ruined my inner calm.

I've been upset lately - there's the work incident, combined with me forgetting to do something, and then I'm working on this one event that has become ridiculously complicated for no good reason. It's made me question my purpose in life and what I'm supposed to be doing. I hate working for other people. It's the most annoying thing in the world when you want to get something done. I like having agency and free reign - that's when I do my best work, when I'm left alone and allowed to do what I need to do. I want to start my own business; I want to set my own hours; I want to do my own thing.

I couldn't sleep last night - I had weird dreams about missing a flight (which I never do) and all of the power went off at my job and then my dad was in the dream trying to get me to the flight. It was bizarre. I had been meaning to sleep in, since I'm working from home today and that's the perfect opportunity to rest later than I normally would, but I couldn't. Instead, I got up and looked for jobs at every tech company I could think of. Of course, that yielded nothing, so then I started looking internally to see if I could spot something and I did. Not a job I want right now, but a job I might want in the future.

If you ask my oldest friends about me, they will tell you that I am anal retentive and crazy. I make lists of lists and I love organizing things (note: this organization does not extend to my apartment). While I was browsing jobs at my company, I found some listings for Program Manager roles. I think I'd like to do more of that. I want to be the one that's making the lists, setting up the meetings, and driving things to completion. I'm a hardass taskmaster about most things and if I was doing program or project management, that's exactly what I would be paid to do. In that vein, I wouldn't mind doing some consulting - helping people organize their lives or their bookshelves or their email accounts. I get pleasure out of finding a problem and solving it. It's probably the greatest reputation I've built for myself on my current team. Whenever anything is wrong or someone needs to figure out how to do something, the default is "ask Cleo." I've worked at my company for 5 years and I've learned things, made connections, and figured out how to answer difficult questions. I want to be able to use that talent. Plus, that's when I'm the happiest - solving problems, fixing things, and organizing the hell out of everything.

Good Lord, let me parlay that into something that can make me some cash. Dolla dolla billz, ya'll! =)