The Year in Review

So, 2014 was kind of a rough year for me. I think that goes for some others as well, so I think I can say with confidence that 2015 should be better than 2014 was. Hopefully.

I graduated from chemical engineering this past June, which means that the 6 months leading up to that fateful day were absolutely jam-packed full of stress. I had at least three group projects of varying degrees of complexity to deal with at a time, which of course also means I had a whole pile of different personalities to deal with. I had always thought of myself as someone who was easy to get along with, but that turns out is not exactly the case. I like to be in charge, as in turns out, as much as I may protest to the contrary. Giving up control is hard for me, and can make me either passive-aggressive (best-case scenario) or openly hostile (this actually happened towards the end of the bigger of the three group projects -- everyone's been there. I think).

After some reflection, I realize that I could have saved myself (and my group) a lot of heartache by communicating more and more effectively. This is the best lesson I think I ever learned from 4 years of engineering education. You cannot control people. They are their own people with their own thoughts and feelings. If you need something, tell them. That way, when they need something they'll feel like they're able to come to you for help.

So, after graduation, I had one of longest panic episodes of my life - maybe a whole week? I don't remember. I was terribly stressed about finding a job, feeling pressured by my family to work (even though I know now that there really was none - I just don't like being dependent), and feeling pretty worthless because most of my class was already working - or so I thought at the time.

In response to said panic episode, I took a job in northern Labrador for a mining company. It was a summer student position, and at the time I was happy to be able to make money (I was also happy to be able to be closer to my then-boyfriend. More on that later). It wasn't a great job, and I was strung along for over a month and a half waiting for a start date and I was terribly under-utilized but I met some great people. This past summer was probably one of the best ones I've had, at least in recent memory. However, the hours were shit, the isolation was draining and so was the travelling. I was offered the chance to stay on longer but I very politely declined due to my concerns over my mental health - I had more panic attacks during the time I worked there than I had all year.

Now I'm back in my hometown, living with my parents. This is both awesome and awful. I will not deny that the quality of the food is far superior to my life as a student, and that not having to pay for my own food or utilities while I'm not working is amazing. That said, I feel like I have no opportunity to have a social life while I'm here. I'm not really that close to many people from high school, and most of them have either moved to the city or are in their final year of university and thus too busy to hang out. I'm tutoring high school kids, but that's not exactly a steady-paying gig nor very intellectually stimulating.

Career-wise, I have no idea what I want to do. Oil is faltering at the moment, and I'm considered a flight risk in Alberta while I'm living in Ontario. Mining has turned out not to be my cup of tea (too environmentally damaging for me to want to be a part of). I'm not particularly interested in manufacturing, but that's essentially what my career has trained me for.

And yes, I do realize that I am in the incredibly privileged position of a highly educated person feeling unsure of their next step because they have essentially the whole world at their feet, but acknowledging this privilege does nothing to alleviate the stress of the indecision that I am now facing. I know that I want to be of help and of use to the world in some way, but the question is: what?

I Suck at Relationships

I don't think that I would be alone in saying that I am terrible at relationships. As a twenty-something, I'm not sure that this is all that unusual. What is unusual (I think anyway) is that I still can't seem to figure it out, despite having a fair amount of "learning experiences." I feel like I'm going to need to break it down for y'all, so I may as well.

My very first boyfriend was someone I met on the school bus at the beginning of high school. He liked me way more than I liked him, which is probably the first indication of how all of this turned out in the end. I was pretty terrible to him (to be fair though, it was my first relationship). I wasn't exactly sure that I wanted a relationship at that time, or that I was even ready for one, but stupid me goes full steam ahead anyway. I broke up with him in a blog post. I hadn't intended to, of course, but my quoting lyrics of a song made everything a little mixed up and crazy and that was the end of that. I found out much later that he was not necessarily strictly interested in girls, which I think is pretty cool. The major lesson here: be honest with what you need and want out of a relationship, especially if it turns out that you aren't really all that into it.

My next relationship happened in first year university. Again, he liked me a lot more than I ended up liking him. He kinda broke me down in the end; I liked that someone liked me. My self-esteem was in the toilet in those days, so any bit of affection was like the Holy Grail at that point. Before we ended up getting together, we signed a lease to live together the following year (I don't even need to tell you how big of a mistake that was). We ended up breaking up over the summer (he wanted things from me that I wasn't prepared to give -- mainly to go out and spend time with him alone at his parents' farm) but got back together when school started up again. That didn't go too well either -- I'm pretty sure he cheated on me (not that I can verify this claim) because my self-esteem was still in the toilet. Swarovski crystals will never look the same to me ever again. The major lesson here: don't rush into things.

My last relationship to date just ended a couple of weeks ago. This was a guy I had met purely by chance, and by all indications he was a sweet and fun guy. He was in the army (suuuuuuuuuuuuuper fit, I'm not even going to lie) and had no real intention of ever doing anything else with his life. He blew me off a lot and wanted me to change things about myself that I was totally not comfortable with. Get to know me a bit better and maybe I'll tell you what he wanted me to change. In any case, this dude had serious amount of emotional baggage, my best friends and family didn't like him, and he had no control over the place that he would end up living. This relationship was like trying to get blood from a stone -- there was never a snow ball's chance in hell of it working out between us. The major lesson: don't go forcing something if it's just not right.

If anyone has figured out the formula for happy relationships, can you please show it to me? This is one equation that I'm having major difficulties solving.