Introspection

It has been a long week, in more ways than one. Work has presented its share of problems, but that has, in many ways, been the backdrop. My personal life and plans for the future have undergone some tremendous upheaval in the last several days, and I'm feeling a little listless and lost. It's ironic that the post below this one is what it is, because I've put a lot of thought into the cost of a career in law enforcement lately. Do I really want to spend thousands of dollars in application fees and fulfilling the various demands of various agencies, go through the huge battery of testing, have to deal with the skeletons in my closet being dragged out in the background investigation (probably several times) and all the emotional raggedness that will cause me and any other involved parties, take multiple polygraph tests and psychological evaluations and go through a boot camp-like academy experience in order to get a job where I have to deal with all the petty messes of modern society, see very little of my beloved wife, and occasionally risk my life for middle-class wages? And then there's the "harbinger of doom" aspect. Most people realize that once the cop is talking to them, something bad has either happened, or is about to. I think that would be one of the hardest aspect of that job to take. My friend Chad (whose word I trust) mentioned to me in a phone conversation a while back that he worried about my ability to deal with the ongoing horror of the job; my inability to be desensitized. Back then, I blew him off. Now, I'm not so sure. Do I really want to do this?

Maybe, but I'm beginning to feel more and more like the answer is "no." Maybe it's my recent birthday, but I'm beginning to feel like my pursuit of a career in police work was due to three things: guilt over past misdeeds and an attached desire to somehow redeem myself, youthful bravado, and the whiz-bang aspects of police work.

I am feeling very much like I want to do something else. In fact, where I am now, here's what I want out of a job:

I don't want to sit constantly. I like activity and being kept busy. Jobs where I'm not allowed to do something drive me batty, which is probably why the security jobs I had only lasted 2 months each. I just can't make myself sit there all day. It feels like my workdays are twice as long as they actually are. Long periods of patrol, especially in the winter, with nothing going on would probably be almost intolerable.

I want to solve problems. I like being thrown a good curve ball now and again. Being able to solve things makes me feel pretty cool.

I want to work during the day, Monday-through Friday like a normal member of the workforce. Occasional exceptions to this rule are fine; I'm not adverse to an occasional flight or drive to somewhere for training or a conference, a bit of overtime, or the occasional Saturday shift. I want holidays off. I want to be able to spend time with my wife. More and more, I find that my role as a husband is becoming extremely important to me. More and more I realize that no matter how fulfilling my job is, it's not going to matter as much as my family.

I want to pull in a decent wage and live a middle-class lifestyle. In today's economy, a combined income of $75k-$85k per year between me and my wife would be great. I want a house, a car that's less than ten years old, and some spending cash. I do not need a sports car, a palatial mansion, a second home, a boat, and a stack of gold bricks.

I nominally prefer blue collar to white collar. I like wearing jeans, working with my hands, and the like. I'm not, however, especially fond of all-male work environments. The crudeness level tends to get very, very high as I experienced when I was working in the machine shop. This isn't a major deal, though. I could do white collar too, if it met the rest of the criteria here.

I would like to use my degree. It's just an AAS from a community college, but I did work for it and pay for it almost entirely out of my own pocket. I liked the material, and I think I could do something that would make use of it. At least, I hope so.

I want to be able to have time left over to accomplish something for the betterment of society. If I'm not going into the emergency services, I'm going to want to get into some sort of charity work on at least an occasional basis, or something similar. The "I want to help" part of my personality is very much intact.

I also want to have time left over to have fun. I have hobbies (as I'm sure anyone reading this will immediately realize) and I'd like the time to indulge them.

And whatever it is, it needs to be somewhere around here, because my wife isn't going to consent to relocating.

Problem is, it's taken me much too long to figure this out. I'm 30 years old, I have a 2-year degree in Criminal Justice, a long history in retail (and only a year in management), and that's about it. I have no credentials, no experience - nothing.

And then there's this wrinkle:

I've been at the police thing for a long time. I've been talking it up to everyone I know. I've been taking classes for it when I could have been doing something else. At the peak of things, I was really, really psyched. The problem is, that was a while ago. I've used it as a talking point, a conversation starter, and so on. I did find my criminal justice classes incredibly interesting. But I don't want to do that job at this stage of my life. I feel like if I change my mind now, no matter how much I want to, I am letting basically everyone I know down, and/or I'm a hypocrite.

Why did it take me this long to have this conversation with myself? My friends Devin and Chad were both on this trajectory and realized for whatever reason it wasn't for them much earlier in life.

What do I do now?