Gen X Against The World

First, let me clear something up,  I am GEN X and proud of it.

Gen X helped create 'the Interwebs'. Note my snark, I have a lot of that.  I spent time working in HTML and Basica before some readers were born.

I am and have been an alpha and beta tester on more platforms and have forgotten more than what most will ever know.  (Ello, Blab anyone??)

If you are a manager under the age of 40 and you find yourself sitting across the interview table from someone that's an X'er, see if they haven't been overlooked solely because of age. I urge you to take a moment when you interview a potential hire that's Gen X.  Don't walk in with preconceived notions.  Just because they're older, doesn't mean that they're incompetent or won't want to learn new platforms or understand code.

WE CREATED THAT STUFF!!!

 Yes, my boomer parents instilled that I needed to show up to work sick, to show my devotion to the company.  Now, I am blessed that I have a manager who sent me home, asking me to just get well and come back whole.  I could be my boss's parent, and enjoy that I can be there for them, give them my 'unpolished' comments and insights, to which they agreed to some of them, surprise!

I don't look at you and judge you by your age, why do you do the same to me?  My generation fought for the opportunity to work and progress, to be measured by your experiences, knowledge, and what you bring to the table.  Gen X appreciates intelligence and celebrates success, no matter what you look like or what age you are.  We were the first to break barriers, push the envelope.  We still do that when we're given the chance. We fought for the chance that someone under the age of 40 can become an executive.

If you're looking to hire someone with fire, passion, a willingness, and the proven capabilities to transform and learn, you might want to consider that 48 year old, because we bring skills and insight you might not have yet. Don't assume what we would ask for pay, that's assumptive.

We are not boomers. Did I say that already?  Can I scream this from the rooftops?  We are the first gen tech savvy. We are the ground breakers, the people that want to still stay relevant, the people that evolved and adapted the most out of any generation, and can be just that for your company.

Give me a Gen X any day over anyone, we'll still get that ish every day.

Fate & Newton

Up until a VERY short while ago... I believed that if I planned, prepared, took the right steps, that everything would happen the way I wished it would.  My work, and the life that I've been living, have taught me that it doesn't always happen that way.

Fate is part of a belief system.  In this mind frame, one subscribes that things are created, people meet, or events occur due to a predestined plan.  All of these things happen through a divinity, or super power that is beyond human kind, and no one person has control of what happens to them.

While I will grant that coincidence and circumstances play heavily in most people's lives, I now see that those are things in which we can manipulate, or rather, harness to create another pathway for ourselves.

With every decision that we make, it creates an inevitable set of actions and reactions.  Our lives are truly a perfect example of Newton's Law of Motion, more specifically the Third Law of Motion.  The difference is that there are numerous independant and dependant variables that impact everything that we wish to do, and why the decisions that we make don't turn out the way we had hoped (and planned) that they would.

Rather than fate, my thoughts are that the presence of confounding variables (much like a 'black swan') is what really impacts our plans in life the most.  These are variables that, when introduced to the independant and dependant variables, changes/alters things to the point of uselessness. This would be why those amazing plans in life don't work the way you envisioned them.  It is not necessarily that you didn't 'expect the unexpected', however, lives are full of  moments that we sometimes don't have the capability or understanding to perceive how much they actually influence the next decision.

I am not a proponent of the 'uselessness' club, because I believe we all serve a purpose here on this blue ball, either to the planet, society, or to others directly.  As romantic as the 'red string of fate' mentality is, and that 'fate' brings things to light, people together, and events to 'spontaneously' happen, there really is no such thing.  It is a fairy tale, a dream, wishful thinking, to excuse the decisions we have made. 

Today, I will live in the day, and am no longer bound by the constraints of naivety or 'wishful thinking'.  There will be a deliberate effort to embrace the moment that I am in, and accept where I am at in my life. 

It doesn't mean that I can't dream, but I will be living more fully in the reality of what is in front of me, so that I can make ever more clearer choices every time I have the opportunity to do so.

Out of Touch

As I watch the world news tonight unfold, something finally strikes me.  The beautiful Botoxed woman in front of the camera, the one with the impeccable plastic surgery, wonderful make up artists, and wardrobe people, exclaims that she’s bewildered by the Haitian and Cubans who are staying put while a very strong Category 4 (fluctuating between a 4 and 5 for the past 48 hours) barrels towards them, promising impending doom.

She’s so out of touch.  She’s spent too much time dining in fine establishments, having her every whim catered, that she doesn’t comprehend what it’s like to be someone with nothing to lose, but one’s life.  This woman considers a car ‘issue’ a HUGE issue. The fact that she HAS a car is something that many of those would be grateful to have.  Dishwashers, clothes washers, dryers… shall I go on? They don’t have these luxuries, they can only wish for a piece of that, one of those things, because, when you are poor, there’s a price to be paid, precious time, exorbitant money in ‘rental solutions’, and just a lack of.

When a ‘normal day’ encompasses finding potable water, being able to put at least one meal in front of your children a day, when your home has a dirt floor and you don’t have air conditioning.  When you live in a neighborhood that is predispositioned to violence.  You live in an area because that’s where you can afford to live.  Rent… not owning, because enough strikes against you in the game of life.

The inhabitants, to numb their weary hearts and bodies, turn to things that numb the mind and body, just so they can face another day without losing their mind while they see others so well off.  Others pray, a lot. They turn to a God that somehow hears their meager prayers, and allows them to face another day of the existence that they are eaking out.

Those who ‘have’ are so quick to judge the decisions of those who ‘have not’.  The ‘have nots’ are those that are willing to stand their ground, keep watch over themselves and their families and neighbors, and are the first to respond to others when they need physical assistance, because that’s all they can afford to give.

When did it happen? When did our society become so divergent, between the ‘haves and have nots’?  What ever happened to the middle class, because I’m seeing more ‘lower’ and ‘higher’ but no middle in sight. You can’t tell me that it’s only the under/uneducated… because I see people with college degrees waiting on tables, because they don’t have the ‘connections’ or they are too old for the job force. 

(Sidebar: I had a wonderful man wait on myself and my daughter in a little neighborhood restaurant last week. He’s got a Masters degree, but apparently, doesn’t have enough connections in order to get a job.) 

I listen to this announcer discuss with a ‘street reporter’ about ‘security’ for a poor b-list celeb that got robbed in Paris. My stomach turns… there are so many others that are far more worthy of the time they’re wasting on this ‘celeb’, there are people who are doing life changing things for others, at their own sacrifice, and yet… we’re more concerned with this woman than we are with the truly beautiful people. The people with souls who stand in the face of dire straights, insurmountable odds, and horrific storms.

My Sweetest Twisted

It’s 3 am…. My 18 year old wakes up, sobbing and screaming “Mommy!”.

I rush into her room, knowing that she didn’t take her anti-psychotic medicine.

“I’m bleeding, my hair, I hit my head when I fell and now it’s bleeding. My brain, inside my head… I’m going to die. I am dyeing Mamma. Oh my God…. Buddy [the family dog] he’s DEAD! Oh my God, I love him, why did he have to die?”

I assure her that Buddy is not only alive, but overweight and in need of a walk with her tomorrow.  I rush to my bedroom, retrieve the rat terrier, and carry him quickly to my girl’s room, placing him directly onto her.  I know that if she has a tactile, a ‘grounding’ moment… it will help her ‘argue off’ the voices that lie to her in her mind. She is still insisting that she’s bleeding in her brain, that there’s now blood over all of the pillows, that the neighbors now hate her because she woke up in the middle of the night.  I assure her that she and I (as well as Buddy) are the only ones who know that she’s awake. We’re the only one’s aware of her hallucination.  She now tells me that we need to move, and move soon. 

Just the other day, we were traveling from Attleboro to Mansfield. Carrying a new found treasure. A chair that Christa bought from Savers that cost a whole $7.   She told me, in strict confidence, that she could hear the people talking in the vehicle behind us. That they were saying horrible things about us.  They were not only complaining about us doing the 35 mile per hour speed limit, but they were taking our license plate number down, calling the local authorities to report that our trunk was open and we were travelling. After 5 minutes or so, I informed her that the car behind us turned off onto another road, and that we no longer had to deal with those people, that they weren’t talking about us, and we would be fine.

I can’t say when I stopped sleeping through the night. I don’t like going to bed until I know that my children are safe, content, and fast asleep.  My baby girl, at 18, has now flipped the charts of parenting on me.  Because of the chemical imbalance in her mind and body, it’s not unusual for her to be awake in the wee hours of the morning.  Many days my husband will wake for work, 4:30, 5am to go to work… only to find that our girl is still wide awake. She’s awake because she’s fighting the demons in her mind.  The one’s that show up and tell her a myriad of lies. The one’s that taunt her, make fun of her, tell her falsehoods.

My girl never got the opportunity to complete high school. I will save THAT sordid story of administration failing epic ally (and politics that were played) for another time. She never went to a prom, any high school event, ever.  Didn’t really have a ‘high school experience’. After going through the hellaciousness of middle school nastiness… one would hope for a dance, a semi, a some sort of extracurricular activity… my child’s chemical imbalance robbed us all of that.

There are days, nights mostly, that I spend with my girl, working through her thoughts, talking out the issues that are resting on the surface of her mind.  She’s an old soul trapped in an 18 year old body. She “gets it” when she’s not struggling with the ‘Bad Man’ or the ‘old ladies who argue and judge’.  She’s a grateful soul. I didn’t have a nth of what she has when I was her age.  She discusses holistic societal issues. How people should treat one another, what the ‘hang ups’ are with each generation.  I can tell you that if Wall Street stock pickers, sociologists, politicians listened to her, they would gain a wealth of insight into how the world is, what the stripped down, no PC added, issues are with our society,  wants to figure out a way to combat her disease without taking SSI to survive. (That’s kind of an issue, considering that she struggles in social situations due to social anxiety disorder, beyond the schizoaffective disorder).  She wants to volunteer time to local organizations so that she can actually ‘pay it back’. 

What breaks my heart? When she’s sobbing, apologizing for doing her perceived wrongs… when she’s done absolutely NOTHING wrong. And then she says... “Momma… no one will ever be able to love me. I will never be able to find love. I won’t have anything. No family, no career, no nothing. I might as well die right now.”

What the hell. She is very lovable… it’s the disease that’s nasty, but, it’s controllable. I wonder…. If there’s any hope for my sweetest Twisted (a nickname I gave her when she was very young due to her macabre and sarcastic sense of humor).

I don’t know how this ends, but I know that it never will. Not for my Twisted, not for myself, until I take my last breath. I will be here, helping her fight the demons and making damned well certain  that  there’s time, a goal, and something, anything, to look forward to.

If a Dog Barks in South Station.....

Trip into Boston. Took the Blue line into Aquarium and stopped by a couple of businesses.  Nothing remarkable about my venture through town. I can tell you that when you visit 75 State Street now, there are gates just before the elevator banks. They weren't there before. You have to check in with a valid drivers license/ID before handed a ticket that is printed out, noting where you are going in the building. You insert it into a little slot at one of these gates, the gates open, then you are allowed access to the elevator banks.

I had finished my visit, not quite ready to head back home, when I decided to visit South Station for a toasted piece of heaven (there's this grilled cheese place that would make even your grandmother blush). Nothing unusual here folks.... the hub bub of people getting off commuter trains, the traveler and business person, grabbing a quick bite to eat, a cup of liquid heat, or some other little culinary goodie.

After retrieving my order of melted, grilled comfort, I settled in on one of the wooden bench areas in the station, ready for my feast. Seated between a businessman checking his messages, and a college student, who looked like she was packed to go home, I began chomping away at my late lunch.

Just then, a dog barked. It was not a regular bark, no.... this was a big, loud, echoing bark, repeated. The dog continued his warning. I looked up from my own little world to see where this canine was, and to try and decipher what he was 'hollaring' about.  In a corner of the station, there he stood. A massive German Shepard, clothed in a K-9 jacket, being restrained by his handler, a man that looked like he was dressed for the part of a SWAT team. I glanced around, noticing that the other occupants of the station were also doing the same as I was. We were all then, looking, wondering, where the culprit was. Glaring at one another, trying not to make eye contact with everyone around, trying not to look alarmed.

There is no recollection, in my mind's eye, of ever feeling that way before. I don't recall ever feeling that kind of unease, that insecurity, hanging out in a train station in Boston. But, today, now, it was real, palpable, and I wasn't the only one sensing that. As I looked around, trying to calm myself down inside, I saw that the rest of the crowd was also doing a self check. Five minutes later, and we were unsettled down, back, somewhat, to what we were all doing before the dog barked.