The Parking Space
5/7/2013
So I was looking for parking the other day at school. I’m sometimes lazy and try like many others I am sure, to find the closest space to my classroom since my campus is huge. I also simultaneously have been looking for work that is high paying and that I will love and that is fun!
I am in between two job offers both of which I wanted very much.. and I had been going over and over them in my head. I was thinking that maybe I would choose one and then not like it; analytical thoughts.
I decide to drop it and leave it in God’s hands and not think about it. I drive to school thinking about my exam, getting an A on it and singing Marina and the Diamonds Electra Heart album. Normally there is a circling around romantically before I find a parking space and then I will either have to walk the long way to class but I always look for the space closest.
So I am driving down the street a second time and there is a parking space right across from my class!
I try to fit my car in and notice it is a little small, but I keep thinking I will try to fit anyway because it is so much closer. After a bit of maneuvering to try to fit the car in there.. I realize at some point I am just not going to fit into this space. I cannot park here. Damn it!
Then I drove down a little further and on the same side of the street, though now two, three more blocks from my class, is a parking space that was fit for a queen and my car fits in easily. I fit right in, no maneuvering into the parking space, no parallel parking skills to show off, no spending any more time trying to get it in there. I literally could just drive my car in.
Here I came to a realization immediately. I want to work for company (XYZ)! I felt it was like this parking space situation that was teaching me something. I fit there. I may not be at my goal, I may not love what I do yet, but this is a place where I fit in. If I go where I do not fit in there will be problems and experience has shown me that. I have had jobs where I did not fit and did not feel comfortable being who I am because I am unique and those environments were stuffy or fake or .. or.. something else.
I realized in that moment of parking which position to take. I am going to try to be myself at work, again. For so many years I have put on a suit and played the person that I created in that “power” suit. That person was not happy. I don't have to try to be something I am not.
Like that parking space, no matter how far it looks from your goal, sometimes things just fit and you realize when there is no struggle that that is exactly where you need to be at that time and not compromise who you really are.
