Reimaging your life?

This is interesting from Eileen Fisher ... Waste Not More: The Art of "Painting" with Old Clothes. Where others see waste, we see possibility. Learn how our Waste No More team breathes new life into worn-and-torn garments. Kate and I were talking in the car the other day. I told her if I had it to do all over, I would rather have gone into science ... maybe become an entomologist. 

 

I was very lucky in my job as a graphic designer but the job description changed so drastically over the years. I was hired for a specific job in the very beginning at msnbc. It started changing and they wanted me to be an animator, or a flash wizard, a coder ... I took occasional classes in these subjects. I could do some of them half-way but I was not accomplished at them. Some people immediately see how something can be animated ... imagine it, I am not one of those people. Although I love animations and love seeing the creativity in making them. Because I did not embrace these skills, they pushed me out. The last years were miserable ones. 

Fred Hutch hired me to do illustrations and design invitations, brochures, etc. That changed in the end as well ... no more printed invitations in the very end and everything was being built for the internet. I was back to changing again. Designing stuff pixel by pixel. Learning HTML is fun, building pages is challenging ... I have made many websites but it is NOT my choice. My brain changes when I am thinking if CSS ... I can feel one side of my brain getting heavier and creative side getting emptier. It is such a weird sensation. But I made animations when I could use them on stories.

I just wonder if I had picked another direction that I would still be employed. If I could have used my creativity in a different way in a different career? I  grew up wanting to be an interior designer or clothes designer. I had soooo much vintage stuff from Goodwill back in the day ... bought for the purpose of cutting it apart and using it for base patterns. I especially loved dresses cut on the bias. Old coats and men's pleated trousers. I finally gave all that stuff back to the Goodwill when I moved to San Francisco.

I also would have loved to work for Adobe doing what? I don't know. Maybe teaching  programs that I loved so much.

I loved working for the airlines and being a ticket agent. It was fun, mentally challenging, getting to help people. I think I have a stewardess mentality. I have the ability to predict what people want before they want it or ask for it. I am always doing things ahead of time to make whatever experience a pleasant one for one and all. I do that with my friend Robin on trips, I know what she wants or is going to do before she does!! I also have the ability to think on my feet under pressure and duress. It came in very handy at the airline, also at the newspaper during breaking news and at Fred Hutch when something went wrong or sideways with printing.

I also worked at nursing homes and hospital as a respiratory therapist and a blood donor technician ... all of these jobs I realized were not for me. And of course I was a bartender, waitress and worked in many dress stores and Boots pharmacy in Scotland.

It is fun to play the "what if" game in my mind. But studying insects would have been so much fun.

I was looking at these guys animations and commercial work on Behance which is what made me think of all of this in the first place. I worked with many guys whose brains worked like this ... but not mine. I just like to watch it.

Kate and I bought some liver pate and I have decided I am going to  make some from scratch. Mom made it all the time. And I will also feed some to Pixie, who loves liver. I want mushrooms in mine.