Walk me through a bowl of cereal.....

I think I am lost. I keep looking at where I thought I'd be at 31 (and a smidgen more) years old. In art school I was so sure I wanted to be a graphic designer. Have a "cool" job designing album covers or something. Find a way to combine my two passions. Wow, what a world it would be. Marry my high school sweetheart and live happily ever after. Now, ten years after graduation I can't even recognize that girl.

I headed out into the real world all bright eyed and eager. I lasted a year and a half as a cube captive in the world of design. At the time I felt a bit important with my 2 am press approvals and what felt like huge amounts of responsibility. The only people I had contact with were vendors on the phone. Right then I realized I couldn't live my life chained to a desk....oddly, they realized the same. And so, I was laid off for the first time.

What to do? Continue on and be miserable or dump 4 years of school and break my parents hearts (in addition to their already pained bank account)? Well I floundered around a bit. Worked a bunch of odd jobs and met the love of my life. Right around that time I figured I'd follow in the family footsteps and head into teaching. Hummm...art teacher. That had a pretty nice ring to it! Being a gluten for punishment I was going to school for my teaching certification, working a job in retail and just then the world kinda went a bit wonky. The getto fab apartment I was living in was repo'd by the bank and we had to move. Jesus! I had just repainted the kitchen! The boyfriend had just moved in!

Again, what to do? I'm not really sure how I got to the point of crazy that I did, but buying a house seemed like a pretty great idea. I was getting tired of moving because all of these landlords couldn't manage their bills! So what started out as a casual perusal of the house listings became an all out search. On a whim my parents were driving by an open house one afternoon and thought they'd stop in. I got a call from my mom "You have got to get over here! You are going to love this place" Can I really live in a place my parents found? Can I make the decision about something this huge with my better half over seas? Buy a house without him ever seeing it? And just then, my life as I know it now was created. We bought the house. It was perfect. We were the typical 20 something couple, spending our weekends at the local Home Depot. One day, while trying to find the humor in our 7th trip that day, he made a joke about us being here so often maybe I should get a job here. I was looking for a new job and hell, if there was an employee discount.....

At my interview my ability to turn on a computer became my greatest asset and so a kitchen designer was born. Two and a half years, two states and two Home Depots later I was hooked! I had finally found my calling. I had all but abandoned by dreams of teaching. Art programs in public schools were being cut and things with the then fiance had gone from bad to worse. Designing at a big box store was not nearly as challenging as I had hoped. I was finally ready for bigger and better things. While living in Rhode Island, I answered an add online for a designer at a design/build firm back in CT. Back to the place I had run from and much of the same things I had left behind. Even stupidly, the same boy. Though things with him failed again, from then on I lived and breathed design. I had never been so happy in my life. Granted there were many days I would leave the office in tears (I worked for the devil) but this was the job I was born to do. After being with this company for around two years I finally had a following. Clients would request me. Refer me to their friends! I was making more money then I knew what to do with and doing something I would have done for free. How great is that!

Designing people's spaces is a tricky balance of budget and ego. Clients usually have champagne taste and a beer budget. Design is all about the presentation. Let the client lead you (or feel like they are leading you) figure out how to read what they really want (because they won't actually tell you) and figure out that the budget they have given you is not really what they want to spend, all while trying not to kill your project manager.

So one day a client comes in with her husband. The husbands rarely ever came. But when it was time to talk money, they were always there. So the husband sees what I have put together. The wife is ooo-ing and ahhh-ing. Gushing over the "materials" part of my presentation and the husband tries to see if this 20something actually knows her stuff. "So walk me through a bowl of cereal" he says. He's one of those engineer types we all dread but I was ready. We sat for the next what seemed to be an hour, talking about all of the necessities for making a bowl of cereal. Where the bowls were kept, is the cereal close enough to the spoons and so on. He was sold. I had so well planned the function of his space, he was ready to sign on the dotted line. Gosh I loved my job!

While the economy takes a plunge so does the design industry. I moved on from that firm to a firm here in Boston. Hoping for another challenge in life. I have since been laid off again. Looking back I have still not been as fulfilled as I was back then. I would not change my time in Boston for anything but I can not wait for the day I can be as proud of what I do and who I am as I was back then.