The grass is always greener...

Have you ever watched the show Lost? I recently started watching the first season on DVD and was hooked. Too bad it is ending after this current season, huh? Typical. Anyway, probably the major theme underlying this first season is changing yourself/reinventing yourself, a clean slate. Basically, the old you is gone so its time for a new one who doesn't have to be held to the same constraints and screw ups as the old you. Wouldn't that be absolutely fantastic? To be able to reinvent yourself and start all over?

I started thinking about this and thought, OK, if I could change one thing in my life, what would it be? Definitely my job. I dislike shift work, working so many holidays, the mandatory overtime, the politics, working in the evenings away from my family, and the list goes on and on. I think a large part of my stress and unhappiness in life is a result of my job. Unfortunately, leaving my job is not something that is going to happen anytime soon, if ever. I have been thinking that if I could go back in time, I would not have taken this job and would have continued for my master's degree after I received my bachelors. If I could have gotten my master's back then, I think I would be in a job that I wanted and that would not stress me out so bad and bring me such unhappiness.

I have been daydreaming about never having taken my job, being more educated/better qualified, having a better for me job, for days now. What would it have been like? How much more money could I have made? What other kinds of people I might have met? What would my life be like now?? WHOA WHOA WHOA !!! That last one kind of grabbed my attention and made me realize something -- what would my life be like if I had never ended up where I am now? I would never have met my husband to begin with. If I had never met my husband, I never would have had my precious B. B is the one thing I can look at in my life and can say I helped make this spectacular, wonderful person happen. She is the best thing that has ever happened to me and the best thing I have ever done. And if I had never taken my current job, she would not exist.

I realized that by changing one aspect of my life, I would have completely altered the path my life has taken. Would I possibly be happier, wealthier and less stressed? Definitely. But I also wouldn't have the one thing in my life that makes up for all the rest, the one thing in my life that I would walk through fire - my family. I wouldn't have T or B and that is just not acceptable.

So I am in a crappy job, stressed out, financially not where I wanted to be at this point in life, but I have my family. I have my B who gives me the greatest joy in my life everyday by just being my daughter. Maybe reinventing myself, wiping the slate clean isn't as fantastic as I thought it might be.