Plan B

            I am feeling discouraged about school since I don’t know what my financial aid status is.  I feel like life is always a plan B.  I don’t have a good plan B.  My plan B is to get a job on campus and get a percentage off of tuition, the only problem is I would get paid half as much as I do as a dental assistant and I would have to work full-time.  I could work as a dental assistant and take one class and I would be in the same situation.  Ideally I would work at the dental office on campus, where I did my internship.  Then I could work part-time, get a discount and do what I have been doing for almost ten years.  Unfortunately they are not hiring and they sound overstaffed. Part of my dilemma is the reduction in pay and also changing jobs.  I really like working in a clinical environment.  I am used to people being disgruntled and in pain.  How would I deal with nice people who feel good, for half as much money?  I just don’t know how I could do it.  Now I understand why dental assistants work for 40 years.  I always thought that was crazy but you get used to a certain culture and you don’t want to leave it.  Would that be considered xenophobia?  Maybe not.  I am xenophobic of office environments.  They are boring and they don’t smell like toothpaste and misc. dental materials.

            I am not as adaptable as I used to be.  I am becoming more set in my ways, as I get older.  I think that is one of the main problems with making a huge life change at an older age.  Plus I am a little more jaded than I was at 18. I’ve been watching that show “Below Deck,” and I wonder why I didn’t work on a yacht when I was younger?  I really regret not traveling in my twenties and getting to know myself more.  I know I can still do that but I like being home now.  I don’t enjoy travel as much, airplanes scare me and when you’re 5’10” they’re almost too small.  I have no desire to go on a cruise because I feel like I would feel trapped and I would be in constant fear of food poisoning.  I also feel that people who enjoy cruises are probably drinking most of the time and I don’t drink.  In my twenties, however, I would have been on board (get it?) with anything.  I used to go to parties and not know how or when I would go home.  Now that just sounds ridiculous to me.  I can’t sleep anywhere but a comfortable bed.  Camping lost it’s luster too.  Even in a comfortable bed in a tent.  I might be able to sleep in a trailer but probably not.  Nothing is more disappointing than having your trepidations confirmed.  People will say, “When you get there you will enjoy it,” “just try it, you’ll end up loving it, etc.”  Ummm no.  I won’t.  I have learned that the awkward, uncomfortable, get -me -the -hell out of here way enough times to know what works for me now and what doesn’t.  Did I surround myself with optimists all this time?  How come no one warned me about this?  The sad thing is, even if they did, I wouldn’t have listened. 

After all of my rambling the point is, life get’s more confusing and the more you know the more discouraging it can be.  I do not have an “anything’s possible,” mentality anymore and I now know that I have to have a plan B, C, D, etc… to get by.