And You May Ask Yourself…Well, How Did I Get Here?

I never intended to do this. If I would have had a dart and a blindfold, I don’t think I would have hit this on a wall across the room.

I am referring to my profession. My daily grind. My 9 to 5. My job.

I am a network engineer by trade. I work with people who have degrees in computer science and electrical engineering. For the most part they seem happy with what they do, and look forward to the next challenge that might arise.

I on the other hand…hmmmm, let’s take a look at that hand. Shall we?

I watched the first men walk on the moon. I was 6 at the time, and fairly intelligent for my age. I pretty much taught myself to read using the news paper when I was 4. I used to take my writing and grammar school books and teach myself the lessons for the next grade up which were listed in the back as a preview.

I missed most of the fifth grade due to illness, but remained a straight A student through the middle of my 7th grade year. I had always planned on something in science or engineering, because that is what astronauts did. I wanted to go to the moon or Mars or some other place out in the solar system.

These are normal dreams for a child. Along with fireman or baseball player or butterfly catcher (my son’s choice when he was 5 or 6). But we all grow up, right?

When I was in the 7th grade I hit puberty. I became rebellious and decided that I didn’t want anything to do with normal society. Those people were sick conformist geeks. I would not get in line and Become One of the SILENT MASSES!!!

Sorry about that. Where was I?

One day I heard a song by the Beatles. It was the song Help! from their 1965 movie of the same name. I was immediately obsessed with becoming a musician. I wanted to play bass and sing in a rock band. I mowed lawns, did odd jobs for the neighbors, I even baby sat for some friends. All of this to save up and buy my first guitar.

Within three months of buying my first guitar I knew enough chords to join a band and play my first gig. I was the rhythm guitar player and singer. I stopped singing when my voice changed. I became a lead guitarist (never got to be a bass player), and joined a few bands who wrote their own music and preformed.

Like children, even adults have dreams that never come true.

While living in Seattle in the early 90’s and hoping to break in to music at the birth of the grunge scene, I took a job as a computer operator. Actually it was given to me by a friend. But she knows, and I know, that I never should have been hired for that job. I had no experience what-so-ever. I learned everything from scratch. I did end of being pretty good at it, but it was never what I wanted to do.

As I have gotten older I have gone back to my childhood dreams of science and engineering. I would love to have a degree in theoretical physics. But that dream is almost as difficult as the dream of being in music. I am so busy working as a network engineer that I have little to no time to attend school.

I actually dropped out of high school when I was 18. I earned my GED with a B+ average while in the marines. I even took the SATs for a possible run for the Marine enlisted officer program. I had chosen to go to college at the University of Michigan for aerospace engineering, but my eyes weren’t good enough to fly jets. So, like an idiot I dropped the whole process.

So, with no real high school education, no college degree, and no formal training, I design and test computer networks for a variety of clients. I make as much as my peers (finally), and am tasked with the same responsibilities. But I am not happy. I feel trapped in a never ending loop of design this, write about this, fix this.

I know for a fact that any other job I did would follow exactly the same process or loop. But it would be something that I chose. Something that I had an actual interest in. Right now I am just waiting to get old so that I can stop doing what I am doing and not have to worry about it anymore.

Go ahead, berate me and tell me how good I have it. I have heard it all before.

If life is what you make of it, I have made a mess of mine.

-P