I declare that this shall be the month of non-creative titles.
I liked the Sister’s idea of revisiting Octobers past, and having a little retrospective. Whenever I have a day sans inspiration, I shall do so. Today, being one such day, has us taking a stroll down memory lane of this very month, ten years hence.
October 2005 saw me living in North Carolina, working in my first HR job, living with my sister and my/her/our cat, Bella in a tiny 900 square foot house that had 3 bedrooms and 2 baths (each of them wee). I have a few posts about working with the characters who populated that workplace . . . they were minimum wage folks, very poor, trying their best. Some were on the bottom end of the IQ scale, and had been placed in these low wage jobs for something to get them out of the house. But most were born poor, and with no way out would continue to live the life of the working poor until the day they died. The happiest ones did not have the imagination to hope for something better. Others wanted more, but between working 2 minimum wage jobs that even then didn’t pay the rent . . . there was no time or energy for dreaming bigger. Kind of a bummer job, really.
I wrote also about receiving a phone call from my little brother, just 18 at that time. He was just on the cusp of adulthood then, and a spontaneous call just to chat was such a novelty. Prior to his going off to college, of course, the best I’d get was a sullen “Hello, I’ll go get Mom” when I called home. I was chuffed when he called me from college to say hi, all on his own, and not even on my birthday. Now he is 28. I still get a thrill when he calls, which he does often, mostly to Skype with his nephews. He was just in Croatia for a while, for work. We’ve all moved on pretty far after 10 years.
Amanda and I passed out candy on Halloween, and wore costumes to our jobs. It was fun, living with my sister. She was always up for anything, a pretty open recipient to fun ideas like dressing up to pass out candy. I could never wear a costume to work now. I rarely make myself a costume anymore. I do love Halloween and wish I had time and energy for costumes, but sadly the kids and job are pretty draining, and anything fun tends to go by the wayside. This year I’m trying desperately to talk them into doing a fun matching costume for three boys. Unfortunately, instead they all want to be Skylanders. LAAAAAAME. I kind of want to play the “I birthed you and labored for hours” card, and guilt them into dressing how I want. But then I think – do I really have time to make these matching costumes, which they aren’t even going to like? Would the pleasure I would get out of doing it outweigh the annoyance when they whined about wearing them?
So, that’s my October 10 years ago.