Reason #2 I must get out of here...

This is Freddie #4 - Freddies #1 through 3 died due to no fault of my own (water changing is rough on the Bettas, turns out).

I am insanely, spectacularly, outrageously jealous of this fish. Why? You might ask...because Freddie has a function in life that was defined upon his birth. He swims around, looking frisky, looking forward to me feeding him three miniature pellets of Betta food every day (except Sat/Sun when he starves). He is generally enthusiastic about the little orange plant in his tank because, let’s be honest, it probably appears to be a BRAND NEW PLANT every time he swims by it. I am convinced that Freddie doesn't actually know he isn't in the ocean or whatever any more. I think he lives in a Nemo-utopia that I created for him.

And I want someone to create a Utopia for me.

When I was in my youth, I wanted to be a doctor. A physician. I dreamed of it. Read books I had no business reading. Fantasized about my loft in Boston down the street from Mass Gen, where I was going to be a renowned trauma surgeon. I would subsist solely on coffee which would make my physique svelte and lithe. I'd have convenient sex with street musicians when I felt lonely and I would be married to and defined by my work.

Except I didn't do that. I took the MCAT. I made a passable score. I applied to and was accepted to UAMS in Little Rock, AR. And then I panicked. Flat out, full on, pull your hair out freak out.

"Who in the fuck do you think you are? Smart people go to medical school. Not you. You didn't do any extra-curriculars...you don't know enough Cell Biology. You aren't good enough. You aren't smart enough. And let's be real...no one you know really likes you."

That was my internal monologue in 2004.

So, instead. I packed up my shit and moved home to my Gran's house. I bartended...met my juicy delicious husband. Applied to Graduate School. Got accepted. Had two kids. Got a PhD. I did the easy thing.

And it isn't that I don't like my life....I love my life. It's just not what I imagined it would be. And while the personal stuff...the husband, the kids, the house, the good sex...it's all more than I ever dreamed I wanted or deserved...the professional stuff is shockingly unfulfilling.

I go to work. I sit at a cubical, staring at Freddie and trying to make a difference in the lives of the 500 students at the University I'm at. I tried science. I wasn't very good at it. I'm not creative enough or driven enough, frankly. So I fell back into teaching and figured I'd try and be an administrator to elicit change in a positive direction. But I'm not the boss...so everything I try and do for the kids gets vomited back into my face by some asshole corporate monkey at our corporate office saying that it isn't cost effective. Then I sit in 3 hour meetings listening to a bunch of middle aged white men telling me they don't have enough time to do their jobs and I just want to SCREAM at them and tell them how god-damned lazy and stupid and inefficient they are. Because I'm a giant in the land of Lilliputians here. And I was once a midget trying to keep up with the big kids...So I'm frustrated. Who isn't? Jobs everywhere suck. I just want my job to be more satisfying than it is infuriating. I want some balance back.

So I envy Freddie #4. I envy his silent satisfaction. I envy his lack of awareness of his place in this world. I envy his position of helplessness where someone else feeds him and loves him and makes sure his tank isn't full of shit.

I've got to clean my own tank. And I'm just not sure how to do that.