i hate that some of my co-workers treat me like an incompetent idiot because i don’t have a degree. one of my co workers is constantly making snide remarks about how i don’t know this or that, or how i can’t do shit because i don’t have “that professional background.” i can never offer my opinion on how to approach certain issues with the children we work with because no one takes me seriously. meanwhile, someone else could repeat verbatum what i said, and everyone would take it as gospel. do you know how hard it is not to feel useless/worthless when people treat you that way?
now i know some people would say ” well naomi, you chose not to go to college.” and that’s only partially true.
when the time came for me to go to college my father told me he would not be paying for my schooling because he couldn’t afford it. fine, lots of families can’t afford college for their kids. that’s what financial aid is for right? not quite…when i applied for financial aid it was determined that my father made too much for me to be eligible. so instead of going away to college i figured i would go to the community school and live at home because it would be cheaper. well, my father then told me that i could not live at home unless i was paying half the rent ( he said it’s what my grandmother did to him, what he failed to mention was that my grandmother took all the money he had given her and saved it so that when he was ready to move out he had a nice chunk of cash to help him out.) so i had to get a full time job to not only pay for my classes ( which i was also taking full time) but i also had to work to give my dad money. what made things even more difficult was that even after i would give my dad rent money, he would come to me a few weeks later looking for more money because he said he didn’t have the rent. we would have huge fights over this and in the end i would always end up forking over more money. half a semester in, i was totally burnt out, i couldn’t handle working full time and going to class full time, i knew if i quit my job i would have been kicked out ( or at least that was the threat) so i quit school instead, and went to working full time. so, yes i did “choose” not to go to school, but at the time i really didn’t feel like i had any other option.
i have a lot of resent towards my dad about this ( among other things), because as a parent even if he couldn’t send me to college, he should have been supportive and understanding of how important an education is. i feel like i was almost set up to fail, like i really wasn’t given a fair chance. and i know life isn’t fair and all that bullshit, and maybe it sounds immature of me to be talking like this, but whatever, it’s how i feel. i think what really rubbed salt on the wound was that when my sister was going to college he did not ask her to give him any money. and for the life of me i still can’t think of why. perhaps he realized that it was one of the many reason our relationship went to shit and he didn’t want to loose his other daughter, or maybe it’s the simple fact that my sister is a fighter and even if he had asked her for the money she would have refused.
my sister is younger than me and she has her masters, she’s got a great job and she’s really happy. and i’m happy for her, she worked hard to get to where she was and she deserves to be successful. but there’s this part of me that is also very bitter and jealous towards her, and it’s really not her fault. but it just kills me that everything seems to have worked in her favor, she’s even talking about getting married, which causes even more pangs of jealousy because she’s been with jim for about a year and half and i’ve been with ben for three years and while we’ve talked about it, we are no where close to getting married.
i’m thinking about going back to school, i could at least have a degree by the time i’m 32, which isn’t too bad all things considered. but it’s still not a plan that satisfies me.
this is just more of the shit that keeps my head spinning at night when i should be sleeping. i just keep trying to figure out, where did i make the mistake? why do i always seem to fail at everything i try and my sister has this midas touch to things. and yes i am aware that there are people out there who are much worse off than me, and yes i am aware that i shouldn’t compare myself to my sister, and yes i am aware that if things had been different i would not be who i am today ( though sometimes i don’t think it would be so terrible to not be who i am) and that i would have never met ben or any of my friends if i had followed a different path, and while for the most part i agree with that, there are some days i would love to go back and change something.
