The Art of the Quarter Life Crisis

For those of you who don't know me (cough*Julianne's friends/coworkers*cough), my parents decided to go to Florida for the month of January. Then, for about the past two weeks, my brother was on an international trip to Romania, Maldova, and Hungary. For me, this translated into an excessive amount of alone time holding down the proverbial fort.

Now, being an introvert, I'm no stranger to alone time. I typically love it, actually. However, for some reason, this time I found myself evaluating my life. Good news bad news time.

Good news: I have a loving family and friends, two cats, and a Masters degree.

Bad news: My life doesn't measure up to anything I ever hoped for myself.

If you had asked me when I was 18 (eleven years ago....omg. Excuse me while I breathe into a bag for a minute), I would have told you that my primary goal was to be married before I was 30. I'm not kidding. That wasn't just one of the items on the list, it WAS the list. It was the litmus test; being married by 30 meant that I was normal. That I was lovable. What can I say? I have very few life goals. Not to mention that at the time I had NO IDEA whatsoever what I was going to do with my life in terms of education and career. All I knew was that I didn't want to be alone.

Good news bad news time.

Bad news: I'm alone.

Good news: It's not actually that bad (most of the time). Turns out that I haven't collapsed under the weight of my unrealized dreams of matrimony. On the contrary, I've gotten pretty tough. I mean, I know how to reverse the door on my clothes dryer, clean out the crap from my dishwasher, and I barely cry at the end of most RomComs.

This isn't to say I've completely given up on the idea of getting married/making babies, but it's no longer this idea that sustains me through the lonely moments. The bad news is, I don't have all that much to sustain me through these moments except my own daydreams. That's perfectly adequate most of the time. But sometimes, when I'm completely alone and it occurs to me that I'm lecturing the characters on British TV for making terrible decisions (I'm looking at you, John Paul Rocksavage), I find myself sort of...waking up.

And that's when I realize that I'm doing NOTHING with my life. I'm waiting around for something to happen. And it never does, so I just disappear back into my own imagination. But here is the thing: I WANT TO LIVE.

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I want to travel the world. I want to meet weird people. I want my life to add value to the lives of others. I spend so much time being afraid of making a misstep that I don't go ANYWHERE. So here is what I'm going to do. I'm going to start walking. In some direction; any direction. Even if it terrifies me. Even if it means that my life is upended. Because I refuse to lead an unlived life. I've got nothing to be afraid of. The worst has already happened. I'm single at 29, and unless something really crazy happens in the next year, I'm going to be single at 30 too. So what?

I choose to move forward. I choose to be of value to the world around me. I choose to create dreams that don't revolve around unrealistic expectations. And if, one day, I DO get married (big "if"), it will be because I met a super cool guy while doing something that breathes life into the world around me. And if I don't, MY LIFE WILL STILL BE GOOD because I chose not to give up on myself simply because my life didn't look at 29 the way I thought it ought to back when I was 18.

The art of the quarter life crisis is this: Changing direction when you realize your life isn't going where you KNOW in your heart it should. Good news bad news time.

Bad news: That's friggin' terrifying.

Good news: I'm doing it anyway.

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Tales of Survival

When I was a kid, it occurred to me that I didn’t like it when animals got hurt. But, being from a rural area where animals are regularly raised for meat, sometimes animal death is unavoidable. But just because it was unavoidable didn’t mean I wasn’t going to try to save as many innocent baby animal lives as possible.

Like when I ran over a toad with a lawnmower. The poor guy was all cut open and I could literally see his organs. But did that stop me from believing in toady miracles? No. I put him in a container next to some water, hoping that stitches were an optional part of his healing process, since my knowledge of sewing came from my hours working on 4-H projects, and I doubted somehow that the ability to match my seams up in the middle would translate into the miracle this toad was looking for. Unfortunately, this first attempt was a failure.

Then, a few years later, I was swathing hay at one of our fields and I noticed that there were a lot of pheasant nests in the alfalfa. I was pained as I ran over nest after nest. Finally, I got out to look at one. Most of the eggs had survived! I was ecstatic. So I found a random plastic zip lock bag and took some shop towels and placed the seven eggs gently in the bag. When I got home and started to create a makeshift pheasant incubator, I went to my dad to ask if we had a flood lamp. If he thought that the madness had taken hold of me, he didn’t show it on his face. Not that day, anyway. He just told me where to find it. So I hooked everything up in the laundry room, away from the reach of our family cat, and laid in wait for my pheasant babies to hatch, wondering to myself if it was like geese and other birds that, upon hatching, believe the first thing they see to be their mother. I contemplated my life as a mother to a bouquet of pheasants. I have to say, the idea intrigued me.

So when they began to hatch, one by one, it was like witnessing the culmination of my life’s work. I was about to be a parent. A teenage mom, as it were. But sadly, my pheasant babies didn’t seem to care who I was.  My parents found pheasant food, but it only came in 50 lb bags. But, I thought to myself, that was okay. Because these pheasant babies would be living with us for a long time. How wrong I was. One of the eggs never even hatched. Another died shortly after hatching.  A third kicked the proverbial bucket after being smothered to death by its siblings. Then, one by one, they all died. One was pecked to death. The rest of them succumbed to their water tray, in which they took turns unceremoniously drowning themselves. And that is the story of how I came to be the possessor of forty-nine pounds of pheasant food.

Then I began the kitten-rescuing phase of my life. One day my dad found three tiny kittens scattered around our farm yard. He brought them home to me to care for, not realizing at the time that this was far from the last time his home would be invaded by tiny, motherless cats. So I fed these babies with one of those bottles you get from the vet’s office, and some cat milk formula. When the bottle proved too large for their kitten mouths, my mom procured these tiny toy bottles, and we fed them that way. But, once again, one by one, the kittens left this world for the catnip field in the sky. I was, of course, upset at what I perceived to be my own failure, even though those kittens were likely too small to survive without their mother. Perhaps my father even brought them to me to teach me this life lesson, not realizing that, instead of discouraging my animal rescue habits, he only strengthened my resolve.

Then came Bingley. He was found in our farm building around where we parked our trucks. He was a chubby little guy, with fluffy gray fur and a waddle.  I knew he was alone in this world, and I couldn’t leave him to be crushed by a truck, so I brought him home. When I fed him his bottles, his ears waggled in a rhythm, like Sloth in the Goonies. And so, Bingley became my cat. Our family cat, Shiver, was far from impressed, hissing and spitting and even going on what we lovingly referred to as a hunger strike. When I was away at college, Bingley, tragically, departed this world. Shiver somehow inherited his tendencies, behaving in ways she had never behaved in the 12 or so years we had had her. And so, Bingley’s spirit lived on in his nemesis, who we affectionately dubbed “Shingley.”

RIP Bingley

Helen Pixiefidget came into my life after college, when a neighbor brought over four kittens to the farm to introduce some new blood into our incestuous pool of cats. For protection, we put them in an old apartment in our farm building. But the next day, one of the kittens was missing. The apartment was messy, so we figured it was just hiding. Then the day after that, a second one went missing. I started to wonder if maybe the apartment wasn’t as safe as we thought it was when, on the third day, the third kitten disappeared. It came to our attention that raccoons were invading the apartment at night and absconding with the kittens.  Fun fact: Raccoons wash their food before eating it. When I found this out, I both laughed and cringed a little. By this time, the only remaining kitten was a tiny gray striped thing with the cutest face on the planet. I couldn’t leave her there to be picked off like her siblings. My heart just couldn’t take it. So I brought her home, where she slept in a Rubbermaid container (the lid was propped open for air), and she mewed her way into my heart. When I finally moved out of my parents’ house a few years ago, Pixie came with me, along with another rescue I nicknamed Butters (his full name is quite unwieldy). 

Helen Pixiefidget

And I feel as if I have finally succeeded. I have successfully rescued not one, but two cats, which has, in some way, dulled my need to take care of every motherless animal I come across. So dad, you’ll be happy to hear, we won’t need to house any more litters of kittens in yours and mom’s bathtub. Not for a while, anyway. But I make no promises for the future. 

The Right Honourable Professor Basil Butterick, Esq.

Perfectly Capable

I'm an anomaly.

I grew  up around and working on a farm. My full time job today? Farming. Where did I spend my day today? On a farm. And I'm a girl. Hence the anomaly.

I get it. "Female empowerment, girls can do anything boys can," etc etc. You don't have to tell me. It's the other farmers' daughters who didn't get the memo. I can count on one hand the number of women who serve as more than seasonal labor on their farms. Growing up, we were supposed to be impressed when one of the girls drove the pipe trailer when it was time to lay out irrigation pipe. I, like many of my peers, learned how to drive the pipe trailer around age 5. That's how we roll in rural Nebraska. But the difference between me and the other girls is that I graduated from driving the pipe trailer to bigger things. I mean that literally. When I was 12, my dad decided that I needed something to occupy my time during summer vacation. So, like any loving father, he put me on an open tractor with a rake behind it, and I spent days at a time raking alfalfa hay on a Farmall Super M.

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Interesting fact #1, when you sing at the top of your lungs on a tractor like my Super M, people can literally hear you for about a mile around. Interesting fact #2, no one will tell you this until years after you've stopped using that tractor.

But I digress.

I learned how to operate a machine. Like one with a clutch. And a throttle. And hydraulic...bits. I'm still not good with terminology. The point is, I kept being "promoted" to bigger and more powerful machines. It was terrifying. But I did it. Because whenever I said, "I can't," my dad replied, "You're perfectly capable." Turns out he was right. That doesn't mean I was happy about it.

Because, you see, I was raised in a world where the damsel in distress is still the ideal. Women "need" men to reach high shelves, open stuck jar lids, and lift heavy things. We're supposed to be like that, because that means we don't disrupt the natural order of things, wherein men are strong and capable and burly and brawny...like this stud:

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And women are weak and helpless. Except during harvest, when women are inexplicably acknowledged as being capable of operating the MANchines that are "too scary" or "too big" for the remaining 10 months of the year.

So here I was, a girl of all things, doing men's work. [Collective gasp] And I basically knew what I was doing (I just didn't know what to call it...terminology again). I mean, I had my share of problems. I ran into a bale with the rake once when I was about 13. That was awkward and fun to explain to my dad. But by and large, I figured stuff out. And if I broke something, I was expected to at least make an effort to fix it. And the weird thing is, I DID. I COULD. I WAS CAPABLE, just like my dad told me. It was really annoying. Because it is SO MUCH EASIER to be helpless in some ways.

What happened, more and more, was I was forced to, you know, do things. Instead of standing by and watching, or bringing the menfolk a jug of cold iced tea like all the girls do in country songs, I was forced to become an active participant.

The result? I know how to do things. When I needed to switch the direction that my dryer door opened, I didn't call my dad. I just did it. Me and my screwdriver. And when I had to patch a hole in my drywall, I looked up a tutorial and made that shit happen. Because I knew I could. Because I am capable. Because I was told I was.

My dad comes from a proud tradition of feminist male farmers. Lol. J/k. He would probably shake his head if I said that to his face. But I'm being real with you here. My great great grandfather amassed a significant amount of land in the time he farmed in this country (he came over from Germany when he was young). When he died, he had 4 half sections (that's basically 2 square miles) of farm ground. So he split it equally between his four children, THREE OF WHOM WERE WOMEN. No misogyny here, kids. Just a whole lot of equality.

My great grandfather married a woman who wasn't afraid of a wrench. Need proof?

Just because you're doing dirty work doesn't mean you can't look cute doing it.

So who was my dad to fight the flow of women's lib? No one, that's who.

The problem is that most people haven't been informed that farming doesn't require one to have cajones, as it were.

For instance, whenever a mechanic comes out to work on a tractor, my dad sends me to "help" said mechanic. Which is basically like giving me a break from work, because--almost without exception--when I ask if I can help, they always say "no." I don't really mind, because if they want to make their job harder, far be it from me to tell them that they're being silly. Plus I can catch up on my facebooking.

Other examples, and some of my faves, involve truckers. Now, truckers are a different breed of cat. Not bad, necessarily. Just different. Part of my job is to load out grain from our bins into trucks to be transported to places like chicken farms. This involves putting a sweep auger into the bin towards the end and shoveling/sweeping as it goes around.

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So one day, I get to the bin, and get ready to start, and the trucker says to me, "All the hired men are busy today, eh?"

So, naturally, I mentally kicked him in the nuts and went about my job.

Once when I had to trade out with my brother and leave in the middle of a load, a trucker told me that he was bummed because "I don't usually get to see girls do this kind of thing." I realize that trucking can be a lonely job, but I am not your entertainment. This is not a show. Stop staring at me while I shovel corn. It's weird.

Then there was the time a trucker took the grain vac I was using from my hand to "show me how it was done." I let him. I disagreed with his methods, what with my having a basic knowledge of how vacuums work and all, but I let him do his thing. After all, the "guys who did this back on [some random farm somewhere else]" probably DO know better. They are, after all, male. After he was done, the trucker says to me, "Can I give you a compliment?"

I say, "Sure."

"You don't see many women doing this kind of work. Most farmers' daughters stay at home with their mothers."

I nodded at him. What I was thinking was this: "That was not a compliment. That was a statement of fact. And my mom works on the farm, too, so I'll be sure to tell her she's also abnormal."

Dang. I really do love truckers. I mean that. They are delightful. And usually nice guys. Except the ones who touch my sweep auger. I mean it, truckers, if you're reading this. You may use the broom if you must participate. But the sweep auger is mine. I know what I'm doing. I am perfectly capable.

I am a woman. I am a farmer. I paint my toenails and I love dangly earrings and sparkly things and lace. I also know the correct way to put a tire back on after it's been repaired. And if you ask me to put the clevis on the 8110, I know what to do and how to do it. I am an anomaly. But I am also perfectly capable.

But then again, dear ladies of the world, so are you.

Blonde & Violet

Sometimes I give the appearance of not really thinking before I act.  And while sometimes it's the case that I feel I should immediately realize whatever idea just came to me, a lot of times I have been thinking but haven't necessarily clued everyone else in.

Case in point: I went with a friend a couple of years back to watch her get her barbell piercing on her ear redone.  Internally, I'm thinking how I really like my tragus piercing and how I'd like to have something done on my other ear but not quite the same thing.  So while we're at the tattoo parlor, I mention to the piercer that I think I might want to get my daith pierced, surprising my friend since she knew nothing of my thought process.  And 20 minutes or so later, we both had some new holes in our ears (or in her case, old holes remade).

And now I have done it again.  After considering it for months, I finally went for it and had some of the underside of my hair dyed purple. And you know what?  I love it.  In some ways, it's more intense than I was expecting, but in others it's even cooler than I imagined.  And depending on how my hair lies, it's not actually that dramatic.  Most people at work didn't even notice (or didn't say if they did). 

Here's the thing: hair color, piercings, they're not forever.  If you get sick of your hair, you can dye it back or cut it all off.  If you dislike a piercing, you take it out and deal with a little scar tissue.  If it's something that could negatively impact your life or others, then maybe that's a risk not worth taking.  But if your work dress code isn't against it and the inner you has a little purple in her hair, then why not?