I chose to write this as the first entry?

“I am going to officially start this blog today!” she says out loud to her cat that is perched on his favorite spot over her shoulder. Groaning both to show he doesn’t care and to acknowledge she is talking to him, he turns his head and resumes his nap.

Let’s see…. I wanted to sound so educated, witty, lovable, sarcastic yet charming and most importantly in control of my life on this first entry that I over thought it and it turned into an entry 2 weeks in the making. Why do I do this? Why do I choose to analyze everything I say to the point that it loses its bones and becomes an undecipherable pile of word vomit turning everyone off? Who cares if I make them laugh… or worse yet, don’t make them laugh? Who cares if I piss off someone when I over use ellipses? Who cares?

Now that my neurosis is out in the open… I shall begin. Recently the author of this bit of text has turned 32. I am not sure what that means to me yet. I haven’t gotten to that age where I want to hide it, but I certainly don’t like to embrace it. I am pretty sure I went through my major age crisis/meltdown around my 29th birthday, so at least I got that out of the way. I hated turning 29. I didn’t like that it was my last year as a 20 – something. And I especially didn’t like that my actual 29 self was nothing like the 29 self I pictured as a teen. Where were the husband, journalism career and 2.5 kids, dog and minivan? I was single working in retail management, living with a cat and driving a Jeep on its last leg. That wasn’t even the worst part.

The worst of it all was the future I was working toward. I was plopped right in the middle of the Snow Belt thanks to a transfer and my pesky way of being good at my job (damn, why did I have to be so cute in my blue collar?). In the retail world small towns that are far removed from larger ones are perfect places to put your store and tend to do the most volume. This Upper Michigan store (that shall remain nameless) needed an assistant manager and I was a good candidate. Being the naïve, yet career minded gal that I was, I jumped at the chance to show what I could do with a higher volume store. I said goodbye to family, friends and life and headed NORTH to trade in my old dreams for this new one. This was October in my 26th year.

I stayed in that small town for a little over 2 years. My days consumed with work. My nights consumed with work. True, I did make some new friends and I picked up some snow inspired hobbies, but I was more interested in working toward what I had adopted as my new dream. My dream of managing my very own prized store. Did I mention I was naïve? Did I mention that I thought I looked incredible in a blue collar? Then, when the sand was about to run out in my 20’s hourglass, there was talk about my substitute dream coming true.

In another small U. P. town there was another high volume store with another substitute life waiting for me to take it on. This was the end of my 28th year and the beginning of my meltdown and what I like to call my 1/3 life crisis. Now, without being too dramatic and for the interest of time… I am going to sum up what happens next.

I quit retail hell.

There are many other factors that contributed to this and I look forward to sifting through them and relaying them with a bit of sarcasm and word vomit.