I Don't Know What I'm Doing

What better time to start a blog? I figure if I don't know what the heck I'm doing in most facets of life, I might as well document it in real time. 

Though we all mask it well, our lives are more or less a chain of one "I don't know what I'm doing" after the other. Or...maybe it's just me and I am projecting that "we are all in this together!" sentiment on the rest of you power-driven, self-motivated, hyphenated-word-loving, go-getters. My problem is not that I lack passion or motivation...it's that sometimes I think that I actually have so much that I don't know what to do with it. So I spew it in random directions like a broken shower head. Sometimes this is good, but most of the time it just leads to wonky relationships and confusion with my field of work--not to mention an inability to decide what that heck I want for Christmas.

It all started when I was fat. Okay, that might be a bit harsh. I was only fat for a few years...and it was all during a time period where it could technically be blamed on baby fat, but nevertheless, I was an M&M for Halloween 3 years in a row and let's just say I didn't necessarily need much more than the logo on whatever shirt I was wearing to pull it off. I don't know what the acceptable term is for chubby kids these days...I like to think I was pleasantly plump. My mom likes to say I was a tank, and uses the anecdote: "When you were on the basketball court, people used to run into you and fall down, not the other way around." 

This all changed, of course, in High School, when I avoided dipping almost every food into a Wendy's Frosty and focused more on working out. This was all fine and dandy, until on top of those efforts (which I will admit were a little too strict), I got sick with a thyroid condition and dropped 20lbs in a flash (Never really mentioned this to many, so if you knew me in high school...surprise!). And there went my basketball career. I was pretty good too, before I became a stick and stopped growing during my junior and senior years. Those years were not the most fun. Once we figured out what was wrong with me, it was a little too late. People had already made their assumptions, and while I did have quirky eating habits, and worked out a lot, it wasn't enough to justify how itty bitty I got. Naturally everyone was worried (which is appreciated now, but at the time was I just "git-out-muh-biznass, yo") So anyway, back to the original topic, for the vast majority of my life up until my high school graduation, I had been defined by basketball. In junior high school, I'd even received interest from Penn State after 5 years of summer camping. And there was a point in time where I would tell people my dream was to play in the WNBA (not to be anti-Feminism or anything, but I'm pretty glad I jumped off that train when I did...I'm not ashamed to say that the WNBA is about as entertaining as watching fly-fishing on TV...on mute). Graduating from high school meant graduating from basketball, which was basically a retirement of sorts. I didn't quite know what to do with myself. I imagine many former high school athletes felt the same. Many went to smaller school to continue living the dream, but I was burned out. I was ready to move on, but had no idea how. Man does that feel like a long time ago.

Fast-forward to post-high school. Part 2 of perpetual confusion. My freshman year, 2008, just happened to coincide with the most groundbreaking election in recent history. Naturally, I was convinced I wanted to go into Political Science...and naturally, this became less and less interesting once the election was over. I then shifted from English, to Public Relations, to Marketing, and eventually to Supply Chain. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the route to my eventual major really wasn't the most logistically efficient. Perhaps that is why I still didn't know what I was doing when I graduated from college. I spent my 4 years at Penn State feeling like I was part of various groups, while also feeling like I didn't quite fit the mold of any of them. The honors kids...the business kids...the work friends...the townies...I dabbled in all of the above, but never really found a niche.

That notion is what lingers with me today. I have many groups of friends...many social circles...many interests...but the only thing I am consistently good at is being woefully indecisive. I have yet to find the cure for this, but if you are suffering from something similar, I can tell you that reading Harry Potter over and over will not ensure a Hogwarts letter in the mail, but there is nothing wrong with checking anyway. I will say that one thing I did find in college was running. So I guess that's a check in the win column. But having the only check in the W column completely contingent on a continuous aversion to injury and an abundance of time and energy is risky and often frustrating...but I digress.

Wowza. I went into this first blog-o-mine with no plan, and guess what...I don't know how that (the above) happened. Annnnd cue my favorite shocked eTrade baby:

So the moral of this post is that I don't know, but I do know that despite not knowing if I will ever know...I am okay, and will be okay. I am committed to trying figure out these sheBranigan shenanigans, and honestly, succumbing to any kind of fear about not knowing is like doing what the writer's of Seinfeld did in the series finale. Weak sauce.

For now, I leave you with one thing I do know...I am ready to be this excited about something (and I mean something more than the next episode of Homeland):

And then...maybe I can get to this level: