Notes from 10 years ago

Before I left for India I copied some of my journal entries from years past with the thought of turning them into something else while I was here. I haven’t quite gotten around to that yet but I have been browsing through them as I wait for the rain to stop and the series below made me smile. They’re from 1996, written during that very confusing year after I’d graduated from university and was trying to figure out just what I was to do with myself.

April 10, 1996
I got a job as an Assistant in a computer personnel company. Every time I tell someone about it I feel like crying. The part of me that dreams of saving the world, backpacking across Europe, living in another country, being a rehabilitation counsellor feels like it's being crushed by this permanent, full time, Assistant job. I’m afraid I’ll look back in 10 years and I’ll still be someone’s Assistant in some business. I was dressed for my interview this morning and I looked at myself in the mirror - this yuppie, efficient-looking assistant thing - and I felt such despair. I turned to my sister and said ‘I don’t want to be this person’. And I still don’t but, as of April 15, I will be.

April 16, 1996
I started my new job yesterday. I get up at 6am to catch the train in and wait until 7.05pm to catch the train home. Yesterday I got home at 8pm, ate two peices of cold pizza, went to the gym and was in bed by 10.30. I’m too young for this life.

April 24, 1996
I’m on the train on the way into work. Two girls who can’t be any more than a year older than me are are sitting beside me talking about their lawns and what fertilizers are best. A very detailed discussion about the dramatic difference noted when fertilizer X was replaced by fertilizer Y. Lord, if I ever reach the point where fertilizer becomes the most interesting thing to talk about at 6am in the morning please just do the merciful thing and strike me dead on the spot. Thanks, b.

Yesterday I was wishing I could skip ahead in my story right now to make sure things turned out ok. Obviously, can’t do that. But I can provide an epilogue to the entries above these 10 years later:

Quit the Assistant’s job within the year to backpack around Europe and never really stopped travelling, haven’t worked as anyone’s Assistant again (or in the for-profit world for that matter), did work as a Rehabilitation Counsellor and liked it, have never had a conversation about fertilizer - but the desire to own my own house with an actual lawn that I would actually have to fertilize is building.