Chapter 35
35
C ally sat at her desk, the little banker’s lamp beside her nudged next to a picture of her with her grandma. It was late, far later than she usually stayed up, but since she’d come to the realisation that she had, in fact, broken up with Logan, sleep had been elusive. As she sat and flicked between tabs on her laptop, her mind spun between Logan, the upcoming Chowder Festival, and the nagging feeling that there was something more she should be doing with her life. She’d still not found a course or, indeed, any calling for what she wanted to do. Before, she’d always been tied to caring so she hadn’t had much choice in the matter. She’d told herself in those days that there was no rush. Now, she felt as if she’d missed the boat altogether.
She glanced at the pile of course brochures piled neatly on her desk that she'd collected from the library. Their glossy covers promised new beginnings and exciting career paths, but to be quite honest, the beaming faces on the front all looked a bit false as far as she was concerned. With a sigh, she pushed the pamphlets away and opened a new tab on her browser. The cursor blinked at her as she pondered what she even wanted. She’d been asking herself the question for months and had not quite found an answer.
Ever since she’d started working at the chemist's, she'd told herself it was temporary and that her real path in life was on hold. She’d seen it as a fill-in job. Another part of the caring role as she’d waited for the inevitable with her grandma. But as time had marched on, everything, including the elusive other path, had begun to feel more and more out of reach. Not only that, part of her had become quite comfy in the chemist. It was a fairly boring way to earn a living, but the pay was good enough, she was well-liked and fitted in, and now the commute was very short, too. Plus, it was flexible and easy and left her with time to fit in other things.
She typed "career aptitude test" into the search bar and hit enter. A flood of results appeared. Oh-so-many things grappling for her attention and lots of promises to unlock her true potential and guide her to her dream job. Pah. Yeah right. Cally clicked on the first link, scanned down a load of checkboxes, and methodically answered question after question about her interests, skills, and values. What could or would this website tell her about this elusive new career she was after?
She found herself struggling a little bit as she made her way further down the page and the questions got more detailed. What did she like? What experience did she have? Did she prefer working with people or data? Was she more analytical or creative? The further she got into the test, the more she realised how little she knew about herself outside of her caring role. Her experience, at the end of the day, was, quite frankly, dead-end jobs going nowhere at all. There was only so much brain power you needed to sort out a carton of drugs. Ditto responding to customers in a retail service role. The same went for decluttering other people’s stuff.
When she finally reached the end and clicked "Submit", she didn’t have a lot of hope that the algorithm and analysis would come up with much. The screen whirred for a moment, then presented her with a list of suggested careers, including but not limited to social worker, teacher, nurse, counsellor, or human resources specialist.
Cally stared at the list, blinked a few times, wrinkled one side of her nose, and sighed. None of the suggestions tickled her fancy whatsoever. She couldn’t believe she’d wasted the time for the system to have come up with nothing she liked the look of. Reading through the suggestions again she realised that they all shared a common thread – helping people. She swore aloud at her laptop. She certainly knew how to care for people. She was borderline a pro. She had enough experience, too – she'd been doing it her entire life. She shook her head and made an odd growling sound: one thing the survey had brought up was that she didn’t want caring in her future. Not one little bit. Not in any shape or form. Not even a sniff of it. Even thinking about the giving of herself and pouring her energy into others' needs made her shudder. Not doing that again anytime soon.
She closed the laptop with a frustrated groan and sat for a bit staring out over the rooftops of Lovely. At least she did have options now. She had to remember that and keep open to things that might come her way. It was just that she had no idea what they were. She did know that she was determined, that she’d get on and make a success of her life somehow or another. She reiterated that it wouldn’t be long before she would be able to buy a flat and that she did have a degree. That she was carving a place for herself in a wonderful community where people knew her name and had her back. That there were are a lot of people in the world a lot worse off.
With the time well past midnight, outside, Lovely Bay was quiet. The streetlights looked pretty with their little pools of light landing on the deserted pavements and big, thick clouds moved quickly over a dark sky. Cally shuffled a bit closer to the balcony door and pressed her forehead against the glass. In the distance, she could see the outline of the lighthouse, watching over the town as she pondered the conundrum of what she was going to do with the rest of her life. The Logan thing had put her in limbo for a while, but now she was more determined than ever to be independent and put plans and things in place so that she would always be okay. Her destiny was up to her and her only. She had to make it happen.
The problem was that Cally felt stuck. As if everyone else had it all figured out, and she was the only one still trying to decide what she wanted to be when she grew up. She repeatedly told herself that everyone else was also still trying to figure it out, but really, she didn’t think that was true. Birdie had told her that no one knew what they were doing and that it was just because some people were better at faking it than others. Inside, Cally had tutted and scoffed. Birdie was a successful, qualified pharmacist with a strong business and no financial worries—a whole different kettle of fish altogether.
Cally mused about Birdie telling her that Birdie herself sometimes questioned her own decisions and that she had been pushed into the family business with no choice in the matter at all. Cally had been surprised, floored even, by Birdie’s admission. It had never even crossed her mind that Birdie was anything other than totally sure in her own role. She’d always seemed so confident, so certain about her path. Cally knew, though, that she’d rather be questioning a decision to be a pharmacist than stuck working as a customer service assistant and having part-time roles with no real purpose at all.
She turned away from the window and stared at the framed photo of her grandma. Twinkly but tired eyes looked back at her. Cally picked up the frame and ran her thumb over the edge. What would her grandma have said? She could almost hear her grandmother's voice telling her to knuckle down and get on with it, and if she wanted to follow her heart, then she should follow her heart. That in itself irritated Cally, precisely because she’d never been able to follow her heart or anything else in the first place. Shackled by responsibility from day dot; she’d had to care before anything else.
But what did her heart want? That was the question Cally couldn't seem to answer. She put the photo back down and moved to her wardrobe, pulling out a worn cardboard box from the back. It was one of the few things she’d kept when she’d decluttered most of her life. Inside were mementoes from her past—old school reports, a couple of art projects, and certificates from various school things. She hadn't looked through them in years, but something made her start rifling through the box. As she sifted through the papers, an old notebook caught her eye. The cover was faded, the spiral binding slightly bent, but Cally recognised it immediately. A sparkly pink journal stuffed full of all sorts. She'd kept it during her last year of school before everything had changed and her regular caring role had become even bigger. The first page opened at a pile of faded fluoro pink Post-it note squares. Lists of things to do in now-blurred blue pen. Her day slotted neatly into hours down the left hand side. Detail of her mum’s care, shopping, study, cleaning, doctor’s appointments, schedules. The fact that there was nothing in the book or notes for Cally’s dreams and downtime jumped off the page.
She opened the book further and started flipping through more pages. Loads of little doodles of flowers and hearts around a list of her grandma’s medicines. Her own loopy handwriting with lots of lists here and there. She flipped through for ages, swallowed, and shook her head. It was as if the person who’d jotted things down in the book had spent all of her time doing things for other people. As if that person had been buried so deep under the weight of responsibility and duty that they’d almost disappeared entirely. Perhaps, even that they’d never been there in the first place at all.
She closed the journal and just sat for a while with it on her lap. It hadn’t really told her anything she didn’t know. It had not informed her about anything new. It had, though, reiterated what went around in her head. She'd spent so long defined by her role as a carer that it had put a halt to almost everything else. Now, who even was she without that? Time for our Cally to get on with it and work that out. She could at long last put herself first.