I'm not quite sure what happened when I was 27.
At least, I wasn't quite sure when I sat down to write this post. But it turns out, a lot happened when I was 27.
When I was 27, I passed my LC exam. It was a 4 hour test and I nearly had a heart attack before I went in to take it. I had to be working in the industry for a minimum of 3 years with a Bachelor's degree and obtain industry references before I was allowed to take it. The test was administered on a rainy day in November in a cold room at Renton Community College. There were maybe 15 other people there. We were allowed a calculator and a bottle of water. I walked out of there without a clue as to whether or not I had passed. When the letter came 6 weeks later, I was literally jumping up and down for joy. Pretty much it means, when it comes to lights, I know what I'm doing.
When I was 27, we took a trip to Arizona. I had never been there before, and let me tell you, going in November made me want to move there. Sunshine! Short sleeves! Swimming! It was positively uplifting.
When I was 27, I lost 17 pounds. Still carrying around 20 pounds of weight gained during pregnancy, I decided to do something about it. I had slim-fast shakes for breakfast and lunch, snacked on tons of vegetables throughout the day and then ate dinner like normal after I got home from work. I really only stuck to that on the weekdays, and even then I wasn't 100%. But, I lost the weight in 3 months. It felt great. It was the first time I had ever done any sort of weight loss plan, and I felt so confident.
When I has 27, I had this project manager who scared the crap out of me. He was a temperamental redhead whose family hailed from Ireland by way of the wild west. He flustered easily and wasn't afraid to call people's ideas stupid. He never actually yelled at me. However my desk was right outside his office and I heard him berating one of our junior engineers on several occasions. I grew up so scared of confrontations. But I was beginning to realize that if you never confronted anyone about anything, then you're often left to deal with the anxiety on your own. Most of the time, if you just have the conversation, the problem goes away. I found myself actually sticking up for my decisions and my work, which was a first for me.
I thought for a bit that 27 was a lost year. One that was blurred out by a dearth of major events and just living as life plodded along at a normal pace. Turns out normal life is quite eventful.
1 comment:
No, Julie! NOOOO! Don't be fooled by the false promises of an Arizona winter! They bring with them Arizona summers, which to us Northwestern girls are like the antechamber of Hell. Karl and I joke about needing several houses: one here for the early summer and fall, one in Portland for mid-summer, and one in California for the winter. That's doable on an engineer's salary...right?
And you should be so proud of your professional accomplishments. Something about the Humanities that I wish I could shout from the rooftops (especially when I get those looks from people that say, "Oh...THAT'S what you majored in? And WHAT, exactly, we're you planning on doing with it? Besides basket weaving?") is that it makes you a critical thinker, a student of deep and broad interests, someone conversant across many fields, and an all-around awesome person of great creativity. At least, that's what I tell myself when folding laundry. ;) At my editing job, I learned quite a bit of HTML, graphic design and layout, and software I quelled at originally--I'd never felt so capable of conquering uncharted waters.
And losing weight is a huge accomplishment as well. I'm not looking forward to that task post-third-baby, and I w it's in my future, if my backside is any indication!
And I k ow exactly what you mean about facing necessary confrontations head-on. The anxiety over NOT doing it is a thousand times worse than taking the plunge. Even if things don't go quite as you'd hoped, knowing you can steel yourself and then advocate for yourself is incredibly empowering! Go, 27-year-old Julie!
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