Disclaimer: written on cold med’s.

As a life long artist I have become accustomed to having many jobs. Yes, I’ve done the corporate thing but all those rules and regulations just seemed so silly and annoying to me that I bailed out. I’m quite the good employee too, very punctual, can type, am pleasant to look at (at times), have manners (this is a big one) and I can write. Having had many jobs means I can do more than your average employee – which is nice when something minor needs a’fixin.

But I don’t want to talk jobs, I want to talk achievement. What is achievement to you? If you read most things on the internet or watch television I suppose achievement is all in your possessions and how much money you have made. Any success in your chosen occupation would be an achievement as well. But what of those achievements that we can not see and that we do not discuss or give merit?

I’ve just finished a job that I do once a year. It is a lucrative job but a hard one physically, mentally and I suppose spiritually because it involves Hollywood. I love the people I work with and each year it is like going to camp – well I never went to camp but I imagine that’s what it is like to see people you bond with, then do not see for a long time.

My job was for an “exclusive” Oscar party. Big whoop. I still think my biggest joy are the people I work with and not the celebrities. I am not enamored with celebrity in the least. The funny thing and slightly off-putting thing was that going over the invite list several names came up that rang a bell because I had gone to school with them. High school.

Oscar nominees, directors, actors, and the profoundly rich. I laughed each time a name came up because I thought it funny that although these people had achieved great success in their lives and their chosen profession and were invited to a very select party because of whatever magical power they are thought to have, I was there too.

If you were to look at my crazy resume, see my truck, hear I live with my mother and that I am unmarried and childless, you would assume I hadn’t achieved a thing. Right? Oh come on you know that’s true. We just can’t help but judge each other by our possessions or our “status” and yet we all know at the end of the day those things don’t mean anything. We give them power they do not possess. Your marriage only means something if it is a healthy one that has weathered many storms and that you remain kind to one another. Otherwise your bickering, cheating, berating are a sign (to me) that your marriage is not a success…but you are MARRIED so it makes you better.

Your car makes you seem better. Your hair, your clothes, etc. It is all theater we have designed to make us feel we are achieving something in life.

Goals are good things. I like them but I never understood them when I was young. They build confidence and hopefully they build knowledge. I never had a goal to be married, to have children, to make a lot of money, to be a grand success…I only wanted to be happy. I only wanted my family to be happy.

Happiness can come from achieving our goals, this is true. But what about our inner goals?

Every year I look around that Oscar party and I wonder how happy these people are. Most of them look freaked out, scared and a tad desperate – even the ones holding the golden man. What is the purpose of all that success if you are miserable inside? Just how long do you think you can put it off? How long do you really think it will be before your inner self corrodes your outer self?

So I wander the party in my loaned Carolina Herrera dress looking glamorous – just like I belong – but I giggle inside thinking that by 4am I will be in my work boots and jeans cleaning up after the rich and famous.

I giggle for so many reasons. Mostly I giggle because I think I got the better end of the deal. I am happy. I have achieved an understanding of myself and hopefully of human nature. My goal is to have compassion and empathy…even if it makes me sick and angry. (And lately some loved ones have made me sick and angry…but I understand why.)

I may not add up to anything on paper to you, or my classmates but I really don’t care. I understand that we are all in this together and that my needs and desires were different in life. Not necessarily simpler, just different.