i’m taking a quick 15min break at work right now just to get something out there. i’ve had a rough day. i’ve had a rough year. i’ve been working in a job doing good things for people, with people who are doing good things for people, and i’ve been unhappy. i knew 6 weeks after i got here that it just wasn’t a good fit for me, but i’m not one to give up or quit without a fight, and nearly a year and a half later i’m still here, trying to make the best out of something. i feel like i’ve spend 18 months trying to shove a round peg in a square hole. eventually it may fit, but in order to make it fit, that round peg is going to have to become something different than what it was created to be. it’s going to have to change it’s inherent composition.
i’m a round peg. this place is a square hole. and already i’ve been feeling my edges getting shaved off. i’m not the same person i was 18 months ago. in some ways, this is ok. i’m far more compassionate, gracious, and understanding then i used to be. in some areas. i also feel like i’m not as silly, happy, cheery, crazy, and fun as i used to be. when i’m around the right people, that part of me comes back out. but for 40-45 hours a week i’m in an environment that doesn’t let that part of me out, so the edges have been shaved off.
they say you become like the 5 people you hang around the most. i learned this 10 years ago when i was a Mary Kay consultant. i believe this to be true, and i’ve seen it and experienced it. so what happens when the 5 people you hang around the most aren’t the kind of people who allow you and stretch you to be the best YOU you can be? what happens when you’re having to change who you believe, at your core, you were created to be in order to somehow try to fit?
i used to be one of those people who felt like i had nothing to offer. that i was kind of a “whoops” on the assembly line when God was making people. i don’t feel like that nearly as often. i now know and recognize what my strengths are (insert plug for Marcus Buckingham books here). and it helps me better understand why i’ve loved some jobs better than this one, and why this one is so incredibly frustrating for me. i’ve tried numerous times to “reframe” what i’m doing to try to understand it better to no avail. i’m a round peg that’s being shoved into a square hole. i feel like, in some ways, i’ve just lost myself.
so i’m praying, with a measure of intensity, for an opportunity to find myself again. to be in an environment with people who allow me to be my best self, where i can be who i believe God created me to be, and the icing on the cake might be that i can have fun and call my peers friends. this place exists out there somewhere. i believe it to be true, and i’m praying for God to provide the opportunity for this to become reality.
(and sheesh if i didn’t have to spend an hour on the road each way to make it happen, then that would be like the buttercream flower on the icing on the cake. am i just asking too much now? 
)
