Welp, we’re just over a week into 2015 and it’s showing a LOT of promise thus far. So much so, in fact, that it’s slightly terrifying. But in a good way? I don’t know. This past week has been a rollercoaster of emotions, mostly positive! Just very strange.
I feel like I’m stuck in between several different worlds, and it’s not exactly concerning, but it’s a strange feeling. Kind of, I guess, like how being a superhero might feel, minus the literal ass-kicking. I wake up and go to work, just like everyone else. All I can think about is school, pinball, writing, and how, HOW, in the span of five days I keep losing my freakin’ Ventra card (that’s for public transit, non-Illinois readers). Like, I’m clumsy and forgetful but…what the hell?! Is my coat pocket eating them in order to keep me warm this winter?! BTW, congratulations to whomever picked up a Ventra card with “Riker” sharpie’d at the top of it. That card *was* my Number One 😦
Work is kind of tricky right now. Sometimes I feel like I’m lying to them simply by being there. At this point I don’t believe it makes sense to leave of course, and I certainly feel like I have my place in the office, but I feel like a short-timer even though I’m not planning on school til next year. Not only that, I kind of do have to lie sometimes when talking about next year and my future with the company. It’s so strange; when I started there, everything was a complete mess and I wanted nothing more than to run and never look back. Now though, I feel a responsibility to the office (of course, mostly because I work there) and so there’s a little bit more at stake because I’m not just the “new girl” anymore. I mean shoot, that guy who called me Jennifer for five months finally learned my actual name!
On Saturday, I’m heading out to Wheeling to check out my potentially future school. I’ve been referring to it as Death School and I hope people don’t think that’s callous. I always worry that folks’ll think I’m too glib about such a serious subject, but then again, most people familiar with me just get it? I definitely believe that, out of all of the things I’ve done in my life, my background in comedy will be my strongest asset in venturing back into death. Now, please don’t mistake that to mean I’m going to try to make people laugh. On the contrary (but I mean, if it happens, it happens). I believe that I was rather ill-equipped to have had careers with death in my early 20’s because I didn’t know how to turn off serious-mode when I left work. Through improv, I’ve developed my listening skills much better and have an easier time reading people in difficult situations. Empathy is something I’ve often been told I have, but my own experiences with death in the past decade have sharpened that quality greatly. I also know when to shut the fuck up. That’s an important skill no have no matter your profession.
I’m slowly compiling a growing list of questions to ask the Program Director/Vice President when I meet with her on Saturday morning. I know that this is a field in which I can be incredibly successful, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous about what my time in school would be like. Sure, in my head I’m thinking I’m going to move to Wheeling, get an apprenticeship right off the bat, go to school and work hard, but I don’t know how realistic it is to get an apprenticeship that quickly. What if it makes more sense to stay in Chicago and get a car instead of moving to Wheeling? What if it’s impossible to work in a funeral home while I’m going to school and I struggle to find an apprenticeship after I graduate? I don’t think I realized at the time how lucky I was to get jobs in a funeral home and a morgue (a fucking MORGUE…and believe it or not, those are tough jobs to get as you’ll see evidenced by the fact that, for the last seven years, I’ve been working in tech, education, and real estate but could devote several scrap books to hospital rejection letters, if I were into scrap booking). I wish I could redeem some sort of “Hey you were on the right track but you kinda fucked up” coin to get jobs like those again.
But that’s not how life works, and what’s done is done. The most important thing is that I have this strong and focused desire to work in a capacity where I facilitate a comforting and helpful environment to assist humans, be they living or dead, through the end of a life.
Simply knowing that leads to another odd feeling. After spending so much time trying to understand my purpose on this planet and going through some of the most amazingly wonderful and absolutely gut-wrenching experiences simply trying to answer that question, I…answered it. It’s overwhelming, in the best way.
One thing that I didn’t expect was the incredible amount of support from my friends. That’s not to say that they aren’t supportive, but I don’t know, I’m not sure how to explain it. I expected a “Cool” or “Wow that’s neat” or high-five or whatever, sure. Ok. I forgot how many people knew me back in my “Deathica” days. The people who I told about my dream funeral home or how I wanted to teach a class to help everyone prepare for their deaths. The people who knew about my wanting to pursue taxidermy as a hobby because it just felt like a thing I’d be good at since I missed working in a morgue. The people who weren’t freaked out when I said stuff like “I miss working in a morgue.” It’s not that I forgot about them exactly, but I didn’t know they were all just waiting to champion the heck out of my dream once I realized I was ready. This isn’t “just” a new career path. This is gonna be my life.
I’ll get calls at all hours of the night that I need to pick up a body, from someone’s home or a hospital. And it’s not just a body. It’s someone’s parent, sibling, child. Someone’s best friend. Someone’s greatest love. Someone’s only other person in this entire world. I’ll be the person who guides loved ones though a sea of commerce to try to make sense of something which often doesn’t make sense. I’ll see these people after the fact, in passing at the store or a bar or somewhere, and they’ll feel infinitely sadder once they see me because of how we know each other, regardless of whether or not it was a “beautiful service”. I will become eternally creepy to small children, which is a pretty serious goal of mine. I will act as a human representation of Death, regardless of whether I’m wearing a suit & heels or t-shirt, skirt & Chucks. And I’m more than ok with that.
Saturday morning, I will come face to face with my future. It took a lot to get to this point, and it’s not going to be all cake and rainbows from hereon out, but it’ll be pretty damn close.
...I Just Want Your Half. 