I got the browns.

After sitting through five hours of paid training this morning, I was issued a company regulation uniform, to be worn in my service over the next month as a seasonal employee of the United Parcel Service. Swimming in my men's uniform, I look and feel unusually tiny, and worry a bit that, should I meet my driver/supervisor tomorrow, he or she will take one look at me and wonder, "Is this little tiny person really going to be able to assist me in delivering heavy packages at a fast pace during the busiest time of the year?"

My position title: driver helper. Of the thirty new hires who attended the employee orientation at the UPS distribution center with me this morning, I was the only female. This didn't make me feel insecure or discouraged, but it did have the effect of drawing my fuller awareness to the fact that this is a job with a reputation for being highly physically exacting. In the event that I do start work tomorrow morning (my start date being determined by the current demand for driver helpers in my area), I will be riding in a UPS truck, helping the driver to make hundreds of deliveries within a highly constrained slot of time. This job has a potential to be extremely stressful and almost certainly completely exhausting.

So why do it? Though a paycheck is always helpful, living with my parents puts me in a position where I could very easily continue to live off my savings for quite some time. Why work if I don't have to?

For starters, it's part of the Plan (the full extent of which I am still emotionally unprepared to disclose). And yes, sitting around the house watching old shows on Netflix day after day has been wearing on me for well over a month now. But, most importantly, it's a new experience, a new opportunity to learn and see and do things outside my normal realm of existence. And, if I'm really going to "live twenty-five to the fullest," I want to have as many of these types of experiences as possible.