MONDAYS

A typical Monday.

Come in to work... tons of email and catch up to do. Barely ever a minute to myself these days. Sometimes I wonder if I'm headed in the right direction. I love my job, but I work a LOT of hours and sometimes I do wish I had more time to just be my self. Not girlfriend.. not daughter.. not advocate.. just Lauren. Yeah those days are definitely gone.

That sounds pretty dumb, but the older I get the more I seem to be taken over by all the different roles I have to fill in my life.

When you work for a non profit, you see all kinds of things. You see what every one else chooses not to see... what everyone else would prefer to keep out. When you work on the weekends,.. you soon find yourself in a situation where all you think about its your job. You don't have time anymore to think about your hopes and dreams and all of that fancy stuff.

I guess what keeps me going is the time I do get to spend with my friends and family. I have nothing planned for the first time in a while this weekend and I am very happy about that. Usually I find myself on Mondays feeling like my weekend was stolen from me. What happened to leaving school on friday and being done until Monday AM? Well I guess that disappeared just like childhood- gotta grow up!

I'll tell you one thing though.. It does NOT make me in a hurry to settle into a full blown career. I guess what I'm doing now could be called a career, but I know that I will eventually want to do more, to see more, to be more... to wake up in the morning thinking- YES I get to go do what I love. I hear stories about that sometimes.

But I came in today with a major headache and wishing that I could go back to bed.

I guess that's a typical Monday for ya.