I’m starting to really resent my student loans.
Well, I guess I’ve kind of resented them for a while. Since about the time they started being, you know, due.
In my slightly older and barely wiser years, I’m now starting to recall all those conversations I blacked out for when I was younger. Those ones about how I was going to pay for college and how banks will just give you money and that everyone was doing it and it was the only way to get an education. Kids all across America were being told that they could go to college if only they filled out the FAFSA and clicked their mouses a few times.
Well, I’m sure not all kids were having that conversation. In many homes across America, the conversation was whether they should pursue the scholarship for dressage or for water polo. But in my town, horses were for the Amish and swimming was only in a river, so my conversation was pretty average: I took out a lot of money on the understanding that everyone was doing it, and that it was the only way to make sure I got a job.
What a bunch of malarkey.
I had grown ass adults selling 5- and 6-digit loans to me like crack dealers. No interest while in school they said. You’ll make more money when you graduate they said. It’s good debt because they can’t take your education from you they said.
High honor roll, folks. I was clearly undeserving. How did I listen to that bunch of horse manure? They can’t take my education but they sure as hell can take my life post-college. And they have. They haaaave.
As many followers of the Jackie saga know, I was once a visiting member of the corporate jungle as an executive assistant for a nice chunk of my life. I indulged in their expense reports, their endless office supply closets, their galas and lunch meetings. I had to eventually quit because it was going to give me a freaking stroke but man was it nice to have that paycheck.
Of course when your job pushes you to the teetering edge of major stroke risk, you’re inclined to spend your money on things that help you forget about said impending stroke. Like great food and shopping and online orders and drapes and anything else you can stare at while you’re not at work so you can feel like you’re not at work. But after a while you realize that you’re spending over 40 hours a week with a knot in your stomach and if you add the hours you stay awake at night because you get woken up by texts and emails from your boss that remind you to do something you already did two weeks ago, you realize that your entire life blows, excellent food and furniture or not. And you can either continue on the path to unhappiness and strokedom or try to get a job you enjoy.
So that’s what I did. I left my big, beautiful wood desk in a private suite, threw all my business professional clothes in the closet, and sailed into the ocean of non-profits and jobs in my field to see if I could piece together enough money each month to pay my bills. At the moment, that consists of three part-time jobs: one non-profit, one for-profit, and one constantly rotating theater thing. With those powers combined, I’m Captain Jackie: almost content citizen who can almost pay her bills…if we don’t count those enormous piles of cash she owes to the banks who gave her an education all those years ago. You know, the ones big enough to have bought a house or a new car or fund a wedding, or do all three meagerly.
The peculiar thing about such a move is that when you switch concentrations of work (unless you’re a lucky bastard), you go from climbing the ladder in the field you were working in and somewhat respected for to having to go to the bottom of the climb again. It’s like being in the 80’s on chutes and ladders just when some jackass of a snake bites you and sends you to the first row again. And so the majority of the last several months of my time at work have been attempting to demonstrate that I am indeed a fully functioning human being, capable of great feats when equipped with tasks, a computer and organizational goals.
Of course, being equipped at all is a bit of a task in the nonprofit world. In fact, I went into work just this past week to find an email stating that someone else was being hired and that it would be great if I could pack up my files and move to the back corner of the office, where I started when I got hired, and used the company-shared laptop instead of the beautiful, large-screen Mac that comprised the sole perk of my working environment.
Well that and the chips at staff meetings are pretty good.
Milton, my spirit animal.
So I’m feeling a little more Milton Waddams-y than usual and while I’m juggling these three gloriously half-baked bill payers, my resentment grows toward that enormous wad of cash I borrowed for a few years that could have been a mortgage or a backpacking trip throughout, well, the entire freaking world really.
I don’t like to be discontent, and discontent I am. So August is the month of shaking things up. I’m sucking at a lot right now (by the by, I didn’t work out at all for two days in a row. TWO DAYS IN A ROW. I fell off the trolley. Please don’t leave me). My first plan of attack is to download Final Fantasy 8, fashion a blanket fort in my living room, and live in a pile of cheese curl powder and my own body oils until I complete it. Then once I’m done mourning the Jackie of Suckage Past, I’m going to dive directly into the bowels of Jackie of Amazeballs Future. I don’t know what she’s like yet, or how uncomfortable her bowels may or not be as a dwelling space, but I’m excited to find out.
Unfortunately I’m quite certain that every version of Jackie comes with student loan debt and not a backpack full of world-traveling possibilities.
But that’s okay. I’m going to cope. I’ve gathered the blankets and simply have to acquire the cheese curls and I’m all set.
See? This adulthood thing is easy.
See you on the flip side. Jackie of Suckage Past, out. ♣
The Jackie Blog 
My office life sucks, that’s why there’s a beach view (printed of course) on my wall, and too many animals hanging on my wall (yes they’re dead… And no, no animal was hurt in the making of this office).
It does help me with making office life suck less (<– not true. I just tell myself that).
I dream daily and work towards my goal of Jen-Amazeballs-Future. Ill let you know how it works out.
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Wait. You have dead animals hanging on your wall to make your office life less sucky? I feel like signs of certain death would just be more depressing. Or is it like an animals-at-the-beach motif I’m missing?
😉 Grab a drink and let’s toast to our amazeballs future selves. And cry a little.
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Crap! I had to click on this blog and become obsessed with it! You just acquired a blog stalker…congrats!
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I love stalkers. Thank you 😀
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I look forward to your ‘humor’/memoir book about your generation and our times.
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Lynn, I need MONEY, not memoirs! 😉 Thanks
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wheres my stapler…
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I think I should get the stapler and the glasses and see if anyone catches on.
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haha do it!
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Love this! So relatable…we all have transitions that we have to give ourselves pep talks to get through. I’ve recently taken time off from working and know I’ll be dealing with the “re-climbing” issue in the very near future!
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Well when it comes, I wish you the very best of best luck. 🙂 I’ll be with you in spirit.
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I have jumped of 3 carrer paths now, and got on new ones :-S somehow I have ended up doing what I would probably ended up doing the same thing I would have been doing if I had stayed where I was in the first place, only further down the ladder due to buggering about thinking teaching and opticianing were good options for me! They weren’t. However I was lucky and went to uni in the olden days when education was more or less free and my parents gave me money to stop me starving so I only had a tiny student loan from the second time I went to uni…and due to a mistake in organisation on my part, the student loan company now owe me money…
on saying that, I quite want to jump off the ladder again and run a cheesecake / art and craft shop! I probably won’t though!
Good luck with Jackie-amazeballs- future, I am sure she will be awesome…but I wouldn’t live in her bowels if I were you :-S
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wait. the loan company is paying YOU?
wow. that sounds… that sounds like a dream.
also, it’s warm in here. and squishy. im-a stay for a while. 😉
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Your “about” page said to stick around, because it’s warm. I had no idea bowels were so warm. I’m not moving, though.
Hey, sometimes job transitions feel like jumping from one alligator’s head to the next in a murky swamp, but eventually, you find a sweet-ass turtle to land on that won’t bite you in the ass.
I have no idea whether that made sense.
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I can’t wait to find myself a sweet-ass turtle. Or a sweet ass turtle, which sounds totally fun as well.
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It’s like you’re telling the story of my life, only I discovered that nothing can actually be done to me that I can’t handle, so creditors can bite my poor (but happy) ass.
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I need to get that kind of zen up in my head space. More cheese curls should do the trick.
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ahahaha
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You could say that “The Man” has got you by the balls. You know… figuratively.
I also have one of those red Swinglines in my office. It’s nearly indestructible!
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I should get one. And then get the glasses. Maybe they’ll catch on.
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Don’t despair, Jackie! YOU are amazeballs, past, present and future, regardless of whether or not you owe your soul to the US Department of Education. (sending cosmic cheese-curls your way.)
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Thanks Peg. You’re always so darn positive about things. WHY MUST YOU HAVE SO MUCH HOPE FOR MY FUTURE?
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It’s a burden, I know.
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Go with Jalepeno cheese curls. It totally makes you forget you sold your soul for college education. Sigh.
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I don’t know that recommending new junk foods to a girl who struggles openly with her love of junk food is necessarily a nice thing to do, but thank y..*om nom nom*
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Ha. Sorry. Blame my hubby; he got me addicted. I struggle too. Pringles are my weakness.
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That was…. Beautiful !
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I was thinking more like… depressing. But thanks!
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Oh. My. Gosh! I laughed so hard, I think a little pee may have come out. This is not only brilliantly written, but absolutely hilarious and (unfortunately) completely relatable! Thanks for this!
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I love it when pee comes out!
Seriously thanks. 🙂
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If you have to disappear, change your name, and don a disguise to escape your debt, I hope you’ll still maintain you blog, if only on a borrowed device on borrowed wifi.
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mudge, you always have the best ideas. you should probably be my personal counselor.
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In the olden days (I went to the University of California when it was almost free – and worth every cent). And when I was full I just walked away, oh yeah. No debt, no shit. Thank you for sharing.
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That sounds good. Can I have that please?
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Hey there! I nominated you for The Very Inspiring Blogger Award. Please get the badges at http://wp.me/1Kc0N and follow the instructions!
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Could you ah come in on Sunday, and finish those TPS reports?
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uuuugh
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Hiya! Thanks a bunch! I should note that I’m unable to do the duty of dedicating a post to it and passing it along to other bloggers because I wrote this a bit ago and kind of locked myself in there. But I really appreciate the mention. If you happen to stumble back here, could you throw me the correct url for your site? I tried to follow the one linked to this comment and got a 404. I’d like to check you out 😉
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Not a problem, and of course, try this one http://moreissuesthantimemagazine.wordpress.com/
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LOVE it! Blanket forts are the BEST!!!
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I think I might invest in some lightweight, cool patterned sheets at Goodwill solely for this important pastime.
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Man, it’s like you’ve been in my brain and wrote out my discontent into perfect English, instead of the Donald Duck-like language I use to express my fury every month when the loan bill arrives.
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I don’t even open the statements anymore. I just have it automatically taken out so it hurts less. I still cry in the shower over it though. That’s the same.
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Good luck, you’re brave, and many people wanna do what you did!
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😉 Thanks for reading!
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