That's a Wrap

Every Christmas season, when I get to wrapping presents, a 35-year-old memory returns. It was the first December of my first real career job out of college, which I'd started the previous summer. What I thought was my dream job turned out to be a nightmare. And all I wanted to do was work at Macy’s in the wrapping department—a very specific, daily daydream. Just throw away four years of a bachelor's degree and the responsibility of paying back student loans for a happy, Christmas-spirited seasonal job, where my biggest challenge would be creating magical presentations with pristine cuts from reams of holiday-themed paper, exacting crisp folds and delightful bows.  Each shape and size of a package could be a problem to solve. I would never be bored and so profoundly grateful to feel good at something while providing a service I was certain brought some amount of good to another human being. 

For many years, while engaged in Christmas wrapping, I’d wondered what my life would have been like if I had left that first job for a job in the wrapping department at Macy’s. Would I have gone back to finding a different job in my profession? Or would I have gone so far off the rails of what I thought was the correct “supposed to path” that I’d never find my way? Something my mother feared would happen.  Looking back, I know either way would have come with their struggles. It would have taken courage not to take my mother’s advice to heed my soul’s nudging. I toughed it out for a handful more months until I had the appearance of a good reason to resign. I was getting married and moving away. I bounced to several more jobs in my profession until I finally left that career, discovering what I really wanted to do. It only took my excitement, not courage, to take that leap. 

This year, I may have finally forgiven myself for not quitting my dream career turned nightmare to work my daydream seasonal job at Macy’s. Time helps us all eventually sync with what is right for us. Even though I did find my dream job and have been at it for over a quarter of a century, I still love the certainty that crisp fold of Christmas wrapping paper gives me. And recalling that clear and simple desire to leave all the supposed-to’s a young woman thinks she must follow for perfecting pretty presents and maybe creating a stress-free moment in her life where she and her soul could become acquainted, perhaps a little bit sooner.