where memories go to die.

I didn’t plan to do anything that I’m currently doing.

Well- good news: I got a promotion. I’m now the Manager of Annual Giving in University Advancement. This is one of those things that happened quickly – but in my mind, oh-so-slowly. 

So I sat down to think about when I departed from all of my other career plans, if you can call them “plans” rather than whims that flew by as quickly as winter in Orange County. At first, I wanted to be a lawyer. It was glamorous, high paying, and fast-paced. Then there was the kindergarten teacher phase. Yup, I thought people would trust ME with their children. Mostly, I thought it would be cool to “play” all day. Ditched that and went back to the lawyer.

I wanted to go to Notre Dame: chose Chapman. I wanted to study abroad in Italy: chose to stay home and work in student government. I wanted to go straight to law school: chose the work force. The first two jobs I applied for said no to me, so there was no choice there.

While attending the 2009 Commencement at Chapman, I couldn’t help but put myself back in the black gown and mortar board, sitting on the zip-tied, white chairs in the middle of the football field. I vividly remember all of the things that I was thinking – most of the words that were said – and walking across the stage to shake hands with the boss, Jim Doti (for whom I would later work as an office assistant in a transition summer job). I allowed myself to daydream and take a quick journey back over my last year.

There are so many chance meetings, casual conversations, and unremarkable things that happened to me which, at the time, I did not appreciate or see the value therein. One such chance meeting landed me my current job. Another unremarkable thing further forged a friendship that I will have for the rest of my life. Lots of casual conversations taught me lessons that I will not soon forget.

It is with all of these unremarkable things that I will associate the most pivotal moments in my life thus far. How many more of the same unremarkable things will happen to me in the next year? It is quite overwhelming and exciting to think that it’s not only the overwhelming and exciting moments that make a seemingly common existence rather uncommon.

A lot is going to happen in the next few months- my best friend is getting married, my work is sending me out on “business trips,” and my mom’s man-friend (he’s not really a boy if he’s 40) apparently needs to “talk” with my brother and me. Sure I think about these things while they are still weeks and months away, but I suppose it’s more important to really digest them while I am going through the experience. I certainly don’t want the things I simply forget to outnumber the things I value.

I’m not doing what I set out to do. But I am setting out… and I am making sure to take notes along the way.