.

Yes, “Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)” was on as I drove out of the parking lot at work. No, I did not cue it up on my iPod. The universe is just amusing.

Thursday is my last day, and I keep catching myself doing things, with the frame of mind of “this will make my life easier in the future,” and then I realize, “Wait, no, I won’t be here.” Somehow, part of my brain thinks that this temp I’m training is just that; a temp, and that I’m going to have to come back and handle CLE forms and update benefit plan provisions.

I didn’t get to take a carload of stuff to DC this weekend, and this entire move has been riddled with set-backs and roadblocks, and it’s all very frustrating. I think the moving process is my least favorite thing ever. I just want to be settled. I keep thinking that I just have to make it until Saturday, but even then, we won’t have furniture yet. And then, my parents will be visiting the weekend of the 18th, and I would really just like to get through that first visit, because I know exactly how it will go, and I can’t relax until it’s done. Oh yeah, and there’s my first day of work on Tuesday. That should be interesting too.

I know all these thoughts are normal, as are the pangs of nostalgia I feel for everything about my soon-to-be-former job.

I want to speed through the next few days, so I can just get to DC and get settled. But I’m still not ready for this to be over. I guess I would never be ready. That’s where “look if you like, but you will have to leap” comes in. That you have to take a step before you’re ready; because if you wait to be ready, you’ll never take this step.

“You get a strange feeling when you’re about to leave a place . . . Like you’ll not only miss the people you love, but you’ll miss the person you are now at this time and this place, because you’ll never be this way ever again.”

These past two days have been very, very long. Not bad, but draining. Interviewing people for your own job is a bizarre thing.

Going over “transition” things at work. My boss accusing me of being “mopey” (I am) and me getting far more emotional than one should be in the workplace (“I’m really sad I’m not going to be working for you anymore,”  I said. “Me too,” was the reply). At least I haven’t cried. (Yet. I was close today)

Hearing my co-workers and bosses say the nicest things about me. Having this attorney from one of our outside firms call ME directly to wish me luck, ask for my contact info, and tell me that if I ever need a job, to call her.

Discussing the interviewees, and at least a dozen times, teased “Or, you know, you could stay” (My boss has only offered that ten times. Ok, maybe twenty). A battle not to confuse nostalgia with doubt (“One starts with “N”, one starts with “D” Did you already forget how to file?”) Almost breaking down, because I don’t know if I’ll be good at my new job, and it’s so comfortable here, and maybe I don’t want to leave.

A half a dozen projects landing in my lap, with the request to finish before I leave. My reaction, which is annoyance, followed by defiance (“what’s he going to do if I don’t finish it? Fire me?), and then resignation that of course I’m going to do it, because I’m me.

My favorite co-worker’s epiphany (“How did I not notice”). Momentary denial,  a Donna Moss reference, and then later, “Yeah, how did you not notice?!?”

Wondering if I’ll get around to organizing the files in the top drawer. Forgetting to remind people of last minute things because there is so much on my mind, and not remembering until I’m at home tossing thoughts at the computer screen.

Already missing, and looking at it all with far too much nostalgia (it’s just a freaking job) because I am the most maudlin person on the planet. Sad, simply, because for all the lovely comments about how I’m irreplaceable (oh please. It’s just a job) this is far more irreplaceable.

A common theme in my blogging seems to be “I started a bunch of posts this week and didn’t finish any of them.” The topic and theme has been the same, but emotions have run gamut from angst to anxiety to excitement.

Anyway.

I don’t want to write about the mundane details of moving and preparing to move, and the stress that surrounds it. I already spend enough headspace on it.

For months I’ve been thinking that when I got to this place, I’d have so much to say. To the point where I even planned out what I was going to say. I had my Facebook status, annoucing this moment, picked out ages ago. There are songs I’ve been listening to for months, just waiting for them to be relevant. (Among them: Already Gone (Kelly Clarkson), Time of My Life (David Cook), I’m Movin’ On (Rascal Flatts), Better Things (Dar Williams). I am a planner, in perhaps the worst sense of the word.

And now, I have very little to say. I’m winding things down at work, and I have a proper amount of sadness about leaving, and I have thank you notes to write once I’m done for good. I’m trying not to confuse nostalgia with doubt.  My new job promises to be a step in the right direction, but I’m not particularly excited about it. It will be a job, and while I hate this phrase “it is what it is.” I can’t wait to move in with Keithers and decorate our apartment, but I hate the moving process possibly more than anything in the world.

What I keep repeating to myself is that this will all be okay in a month. If I can just make it through the next month without a breakdown, IT WILL BE OK. Of course, this “month” keeps getting extended, and by now, I should really say “If I can just make it through these next two weeks,” but I’ll split the difference and call it three. In three weeks, I will be in DC, will have been at my new job a week, and will, logistics willing, at least have a mattress.

Until then, I try to organize my desk, get instructions ready for whatever poor temp fills my place, and try not to have too many maudlin moments about how this job saved my life, and how I will miss the gratitude I associate with it.

Now that I’ve found a job, I have no idea what to do with myself. There’s the inevitable moving-related stress, which encompasses furniture hunting, dealing with idiotic management, and obsessing about coordinating logistics. There’s wrapping things up at work, but honestly, I think I’ve got it under control, and no one is even going to BE here my last week due to vacation schedules.

So now I’m just waiting. I have to get a new phone before I leave. I’m on Verizon, and have an ancient LG phone that can talk and text and nothing else. I want a phone with a QWERTY keyboard and the ability to access email/facebook. I don’t even know the proper terminology for internet capable phones. 3G? Anyway, anyone have recommendations?

There’s a million other sundry things I need to do. I’m hyper, nervous, and impatient, and I expect to remain this way for at least the next month. The sooner I accept that, the sooner I can calm down!

I’m back!

Vacation was…ok. There was, unfortunately, some stress involved, such as running around a tiny beach town, trying to find a) somewhere to print something from the internets b) a notary public c) a UPS/Fed-Ex store.

But now I’m back, and I have news. Originally, I was going to break this down into a few posts, and tell the tale of how this came to be, but really, I don’t have the patience. Maybe I’ll go back and write it just for myself at some point, but today, I’m back at work and I’m tired, and I have a ton to do, so without further delay:

I got a job in DC. I’m moving there in less than three weeks.

I am writing this from the third floor balcony of the beach house in Rhode Island. You can see the water from up here. I’m hanging out with my pseudo cousins, we’re catching up, and I’m trying not to obsess about various things. I stopped in Connecticut on the way up to see David, although I couldn’t stay as long as I would have liked. I had to get up here so we could do the grocery shopping. We are incredibly, awesomely efficient.

Yesterday, I met up with Jill-IAN and Drew in the city, for catching up, wandering around the West Village hating people, and getting delicious Mexican food by our old office. It was, of course, lovely to see both of them. I don’t think we’ll ever all be in the same city and same place in our lives ever again, which makes me a little sad, but we still have the ability to meet up once a year and to go on and on as if nothing has changed.

I know I’m 2/3rd through the 100 day challenge, but I may not be able to do it. In fact, I doubt I’ll be able to write much from up here. Right now, I’m stealing wireless from the neighbors, and I don’t know if I’ll be inclined to make the effort anyway.

Of course, now that I’ve said that, I’ll probably have a million brilliant things to write.

Ok, so the craziest week ever is about half over. I am back in Jersey, and all I will ask is that you cross your fingers for me. First, that I get the news I want, and second, that I get it in time. It went well. I don’t know what else to say about it. Everything else seems like it will just jinx things. I don’t want to get my hopes up (too late) and I’d like to say I won’t be disappointed, because this is still not an ideal, but I also know that I will.

Tomorrow, I’m supposed to have lunch with Caryn (my brother’s friend, who has become my friend too), and then tomorrow night is the last trivia night before Joe moves. And somewhere in there I need to do a lot of work at my actual job. Bummer.

I drove home tonight up the Parkway, and singing along to Meatloaf, because there is something very summer-y about that. I blame the summer of 1999.

This is all non-sequitor.

Says David: If you keep overthinking like this, you will wind up in a strait-jacket, drooling.

There is only so much “about my day” blogging I can do, because my days are generally really boring.  I’m also pretty much over this whole 100 day challenge thing. Like today, I am definitely just phoning it in. My mind is on the drive I have to make in two hours, and I’m too tired to even be anxious.

I convinced Joe to hang out for a little bit last night, which went a long way towards curing my crankiness over the fact that he’s leaving. Also, he knew I was cranky, because he was leaving, long before I did.

(Also, please someone stop me before I get into a political argument on Facebook. Someone posted some nonsense about “omg, they’re building a mosque at ground zero. That is spitting in the faces of all the people who died” I don’t have to tell any of you (I hope not, anyway) why this comment is ridiculous, but there is absolutely no point in arguing about it ON FACEBOOK. Now I’m angry.

I’m writing this post and I don’t know if it will ever see the light of day, and if it does, I don’t know how long it will stay posted before I snatch it down because it’s just Too Much.

One word is reverberating through my brain (I hate that word — reverberating — it’s just Too Much, but it’s the first word I put down): Act.

Read the rest of this entry »

By noon today, I’d finished two loads of laundry and two cups of coffee. One would think that I could sustain this productivity, but instead I’ve mostly just thought about all the things I have to do at work tomorrow, and then told myself to stop obsessing because whenever I worry about the one million things I have to do, I’m always able to complete them by noon.

My most constant internal conflict as of late is whether to resign myself to the misery of defeat or indulge my slightly new age-y belief in the universe.  While I never realized it in my earlier years the choice IS entirely up to me. And why, you might wonder, would I consciously choose the former? It seemingly condemns myself to more despair.

There’s something to be said for resignation. It’s realistic. I’m 27 years old and all I’ve ever been is a glorified secretary. In eight months of job hunting I’ve had a few phone interviews and a few in person interviews, none of which have gone very well. I don’t have internship experience, connections, and I suck at networking (and don’t try as hard as I should.) The odds stack up and demotivate me further. What’s the point? Why should I do what feels so unnnatural?

There is an insanity in me though, one that nags at me when I’m blindly clicking through job listings and not applying to one of them. There is still the wily brand of hope that I have written about so many times here. It seems to be purely irrational to indulge in it. There is no reason at all to believe that things will get better, just because. The universe has proved itself to be completely random, and since I’m now of the opinion that I’ve used up a great deal of my good luck in my earlier years, there is no reason for me to just have faith that things will get better. I have been at this for nearly nine months. Getting interviews doesn’t make me any closer to getting to DC, anymore than one can be a little bit pregnant.

There is no reason for the madness of my hope, and yet I often find myself with it anyway. When I’m in my car, and my iPod shuffle hits the right song (lately, it’s been hiting Dar Williams “Better Things” quite often) it’s so easy to hope. It’s so easy to get in the state of mind where I think all this whining and angsting and waiting is both worth it, and happening for a reason, even though I believe that we assign reasons after the fact.

I don’t know which is better anymore.

And so we choose between reality & madness

It’s either sadness or euphoria.

I was in good spirits on the way to work this morning, but somewhere between my iced coffee and my inability to compose a blog post it became a very blah day. I am really tired, there’s a huge balance on both my credit cards, and my suit jacket is just going to have to make itself useful even without the dry cleaning.

There is a reason for all this, of course. I hope it’s worth it. That’s all I’ll say right now.

Why is today going so slow, and why am I so tired? I got a decent night’s sleep! I suppose one good night can’t make up for the past 10 days, and it’s going to get worse before it gets better.

There are no words for how insane next week is going to be. I’m trying not to think about it, because it’s going to be miserable, but if I can keep myself from thinking about it, and keep myself from dreading all the anxiety producing events, maybe it won’t be as bad.

One day at a time?

Nah! (I just emailed Brent: “I am going to hate the world until approximately this time next week.” And it’s true!

“Why stop there?” he asked.

Also a valid point. But I do like my dose of new age-y optimism that I am sometimes able to maintain. I just can’t fake it till I make it in the next seven days. I’m already exhausted.

Why fight it? Some days, it’s just not worth the effort.

Worrying does not change an outcome. That is a lesson I have learned over and over again in the past 16 months. I have tried to remind myself of it, to quell the fret that inevitably bubbles up. So I’ll hold off delving into details. Even the worst case scenarios here are nothing to waste head space over.

I am currently sitting in the reception area of my office, waiting for the UPS guy to show up. I’m babysitting the stack of boxes, containing the Important Books for Important Quarterly Meeting, that can’t be left unattended.

I just realized I haven’t eaten anything today.  It was a fairly frentic day, and yesterday was busy too, and I have so much to do tomorrow, and I’m tired, and whine.

I think that I’ve used up every bit of good luck and perfect timing that one is granted in a life time.

There was PLI, the job that I originally didn’t get, and then did get, and it was through there that I met everyone important for my rockstar year in the city.

There was the time I had to move out of my Astoria apartment, and a livejournal friend was moving into the city, and the timing was just Worked Out.

There was the eight and a half months of not driving, and stressing over rides, and while there were some bad days, for the most part, it just worked out, right when it needed to.

Hell, if you want to go even further back, I can name at least half a dozen moments and coincidences that gave me many bits of charmed life.

I have been very lucky.

Now, Keithers is scouring DC for an apartment for his second year at Georgetown, when the two of us thought that for sure, by now, we’d be able to look for a two bedroom together, but I’m no closer to a job than I was when we first start talking about this potential plan.

Now, I have an idea of A Plan, but no firm idea about the timing, and the ideas swirl around in my head and I can’t decide what to do, and every decision seems like the wrong one, because it leaves me here for another six months, at least, and I don’t know if I can do that. I mean, of course I CAN do that but it seems more and more daunting every day. And again, I wish all the jobs in DC could be in NYC. That would make things easier. (While I’m wishing for things I can’t have, I may as well go all the way)

Things are not bad now, in the grand scheme of things and all. But the little hits add up, and I just don’t know what to do anymore. I can’t control HR people canceling interviews I’ve specifically traveled to town for. I can’t change that one of my best friends is moving across the country. I can’t make there be more job postings. I can’t  help that the Cute-Shy-Boy couldn’t even be bothered after an awkward first date to say “no thanks,” to a second. I can’t control my first reactions to any of these things, but I can control my second thoughts, and despite the amount of whining and angst that appears in this space, I’ve been handling it remarkably well (I think). There’s room for improvement of course, but I think I have done well without sinking down into complete despair.

But it’s getting harder. I am still fighting the ennui (in fact, sometimes I am so far into my new-agey belief in the universe that the side of me that’s writing this would call that side delusional) but I’m starting to wonder: at what point do you just give up and concede that it’s just not going to work out as you hoped or planned, and that there’s nothing you can do about it? At what point do you admit defeat?

And then, what do you do next?

Thank you all for you comments and encouragement yesterday. It helped, it really did. I have been a bad commenter lately. This is partially because I can’t get into using a reader, and partially because any bout of concentration I have during the day is spent on multi-tasking while cover lettering. And trying to keep up with my 100 day writing challenge. I used to actually “craft” blog entries, years ago, and reading them back, they sound crafted. Which isn’t wrong, it just reads like a girl who takes herself too seriously.

Which, to be fair, I probably did (do?). Who knows. Anyway, the point of this, is that writing every day forces me to stop considering my audience. I HAVE to write this. Maybe if I do this for long enough I will stop subconsciously writing for all those pseudonymed exes.

On my Facebook feed, a girl I knew from high school had posted “RIP [Name].” The same name as this guy I went to high school and middle school with, who was a friend, a co-worker, and my date to the eighth grade dance. We’ve kept in touch on and off over the years, and give him credit for “corrupting” me (he always teased me for being a straight edge) and teaching me how to have a good time in NYC.

Before I could even react (it was literally a few seconds) I learned from the comments on her status, that it was not the same person. (He has a fairly common name). But I’ve still gone back to her status over and over, and re-read the comments, to make sure.

I don’t have anything else to say about that, but it happened and I felt I should mention it. A guy from my graduating class did die a few months ago. I didn’ t know him at all, but his last name came right before mine alphabetically, so he sat in front of me for the PSATs and laughed at my Dawson’s Creek reference. It is totally ridiculous, the things you remember.

 Anyway, I should write that cover letter that I asked you all about yesterday, and tweak my resume, so I can submit it tomorrow.

Ok, time to hit post.

There seem to be more libertarian/free-market organization jobs open lately, which is a good thing. More to apply for!

The problem is that when I actually care about the job I’m applying for I obsess (overthink?) the application, spend possibly way too much time on it, and often wind up giving up and not applying. How do you explain in a job application that you just see these ideas as fundamentally right and that you want to put every ounce of your energy behind them? How do you strike the right balance between professionalism (these are my qualities: and look! they match the job requirements perfectly) and passion (my god I will answer phones, I will make coffee, I will make copies, I will DO ANYTHING just to work for this type of organization)?

Juding by the number of responses, my applications often fall short.

Right now, I just wrote two paragraphs about how I came to my libertarian ideas, (an EXTREME CliffNotes version)

My passion for free market and liberty oriented ideas was not ignited in the traditional manner of being exposed to the great works of Hayek and Friedman. That came later. While a college student, I listened to my fellow students advocate for ideas that involved government “solutionss” and referenced “the public good.” I disagreed with them, but I couldn’t pinpoint why. Then, in “Contemporary American Conservatism” I read Charles Murray’s “What It Means To Be A Libertarian,” and it clicked.

In the classroom, I became very well-educated in what I didn’t believe in. In small reading groups, in internet forums, and in volunteer work, I became very well educated in what I did believe in; that is that a free market society with an absence of government intrusion is the best atmosphere for the continuing advancement of humankind.

And now I must debate whether that should go in the letter.

.

Two years ago today, after hours of protest, they finally let me leave the hospital. It was a few days after I’d gotten back from the awful Chicago trip with O-L-B, and I had dealt with it by drinking too much, and drunk dialing. I had tickets to Billy Joel, Last Play At Shea (Awesome, because Billy Joel is…was my favorite ever)

But me, being me, and being fully on board with Self Destructive Behavior, fucked it up. I wound up black out drunk and being transported to some hospital in Queens via ambulance. Kristen – a high school/college friend of mine, still has not spoken to me, other than acknowledging I was alive, since witnessing it. I still feel sickly guilty about my behavior, about the stupid thing I did in reaction to a bad situation, and also, still, how I managed to miss Billy Joel’s last play at Shea.

For the most part, I still can’t listen to Billy Joel, who I have loved since childhood. His music has imbued every Important Moment of my life, and I can’t listen to him. That still breaks my heart, that still is the coldest reminder of the destruction I caused to me and my loved ones while at the depths of Depression.

The morning after, (that past night, I had apparently drunk dialed my own mother, so deep was my cry for help) I boarded the bus to Jersey and came home. That, in many ways, remains the worst day of my life, although if we’re competing, it may be second only to March 18, 2009, which I’ve still not written about here.

I made a lot of drunken phone calls the night I was in the hospital. To O-L-B, and also to Dru, the other Libertarian boy I had stupidly gotten myself entangled with.

The whole week leading up to that incident was so awful. I was hurtling toward it, what with my stupid decision to drive to Chicago with O-L-B and then, to share a room with him.

Thank god for David. Thank god for this random Internet-Stranger-Friend, who had already saved my life months before, when he acknowledged the validity of my feelings, and recognized that yeah, I had a problem, and I wasn’t crazy to think so. Last night, I was out with other people from Message-Board-of-Note, and it reminded me how incredibly grateful I am to have found this internet community, that by all rights, I shouldn’t be a part of. I rarely, if ever, posted on H&R. It is by fate, coincidence, whatever you want to call it that I wound up on Message Board of Note, that I wound up driving to Connecticut with O-L-B as my passenger, and meeting David in person, and then, that Thanksgiving. Well, there was that Thanksgiving.

I have this text message, from that date, two years ago saved. I remember what I wrote. I was waiting for the bus in Port Authority, and I lamented “I just don’t feel like I have anything to get better for.” That text message isn’t saved. But I remember it, because I remember so distinctly what it was to feel that way.

David’s reply: “You have yourself to get better for jackass. What else would need?”

I did get better. It took awhile, but damnit, I Got Better. It was the easiest and hardest thing that I have ever had to do in my life. Staying Better is just as hard. I don’t think I could have done it, were it not for the perfect combination of job/awesome boss, my amazing AMAZING, Internet-Stranger-Friends, and my old friends.

But that text message stands out to me. That day was horrible, and that week had been horrible, and David answered my texts/calls, even though he knew that it was me for was doing the fucking up, he looked past that and still said “You have a lot of good qualities. It’s a pity you’re willing to overlook them and dwell on your flaws”

Lately, I’ve been managing to listen to the song “Vienna,” one of my favorite Billy Joel songs, which is oh-so-appropriate for my current situation. Because, I got better. Not right away, and not easily, and not without my hand being forced, but I got better.

And even though I can’t listen to most of my former favorite songs, I think that may still be the coolest thing I’ve ever done.

I am having an anxiety attack about how the rest of the week is going to go. Typical. I have been completely unproductive ALL week.

I can’t concentrate and I can’t focus and I really shouldn’t be drinking Monster Energy Drink.

Unrelated to nothing: my dreams last night were of grizzly bears, poisonous snakes and rabid bats. The snakes may have also been rabid. I jolted awake several times only to drift back into the same dream.  My co-worker teased that we could probably psycho-analyze something out of that!

It seems my nightly dread of having to come to work in the morning is getting worse. Which makes me feel guilty, because as I have said 1000 times, it’s really not that bad. And it isn’t forever, it’s not.

Still, sometimes the circumstances feel more suffocating then others. And three rather serendipitous internet connections within a twelve hour period? That just makes my brain brew more about dreams, and goals, and taking chances.

Maybe I just need to accept it, accept that this will be a waste of a week, and go to Banana Republic during lunch to purchase a cardigan with my 40% coupon, because damnit, it’s cold in here.

I am groggy from too much Benadryll and also, really cold. Since I am always hot this means either my office is really freezing or I’m getting sick. I suspect it is the latter, because I am the Baroness of Bad Timing.

I was glancing through an article today about the DNC distributing major money for the mid-terms in Ohio and Florida. I think the mid-terms will be interesting, but I don’t have any strong predictions. Yes, I am the girl who has been saying for almost a year now that I don’t think Obama will win re-election, (this guy disagrees!) but the mid-terms are a different game.  Incumbancy matters more.

Plus, even though I think a lot of people are not happy with Obama (the whole “he let us down” phenomenon, which just makes me sad. Both because it was easy to buy into the idea that Obama wouldn’t let “us” down, and because I believe that when you’re elected president, your first full day in office, after all the inaugural balls are over, they pull you into a room, and say “Ok. You said a lot of nice things during the campaign. But here’s what you’re actually allowed to do. And if you try to do more, we’ll see have you assasinated.” C’mon guys, Let Obama be Obama!)

Anyway, I don’t think this is going to be anywhere near the 1994 midterms, especially since 1994 was unique circumstances.  Newt Gingrich and the Contract With America was (I think) overstated by the media (even now, that’s the reason you hear for the reversal), but still, there’s no Newt equivalent.

1994 saw a larger number of seats open than usual, because a lot of members of Congress retired due to the new pension rules. Plus, a lot of people were deserting the Democratic Party; an ideological realignment, if you will. Combine that with the failure of Clinton’s healthcare plan, and it’s not surprising that people were shifting towards GOP. I guess you could say that the 1992 election also had the Perot effect, and that the 1994 midterms just reflect people coming back to the party after voting indepedent, but I’m not sure that’s valid, because midterms are much more local.

Here is a list of voter shifts, which is kind of interesting.

I don’t want to write! Why did I extend this anyway? (The answer to the meaning of life, the universe, and everything is 42. That’s about the only thing I know about Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and I only know this because I was friends with a lot of nerds in middle school. Well, I’m still friends with nerds (some of the same ones!) but this was possibly at the peak of their nerdiness. They all played Magic the Gathering, and I would go to their Magic touraments, because a couple of the guys had a crush on me. The ones that didn’t probably just found me really, really annoying, and in retrospect, I don’t know how they didn’t punch me in the face.

I couldn’t sleep last night. At 27, I am still on the “school year” calendar, and thus my brain thinks it can stay up late for no reason during the summer. I remember this happening last year; I was pretty useless come late August.

The thing about forcing yourself to write every day, is that there are some days (like today) where you leave the WordPress window open for hours, hoping that something articulate and semi-interesting will come together, and writing and erasing paragraphs because they’re just too god damn boring.

(Brent would describe many of the tales I tell as “cool stories.” This is not a compliment.)

So now it’s 5:30, and all I’ve really done today is make a half-hearted attempt at the gym and sent a couple emails. Oh, and watched 90210. The original 90210, not the remake. It was from late in the shows run, after Brandon has already permanently departed to points East and Dylan (the prodigal Dylan McKay!) has returned, and almost immediately, he starts doing coke again, and almost accidentally kills Tori Spelling. It’s pretty awesome.

Also, I am addicted to reading Above the Law. It is pure trashy goodness and I wish they had an equivalent for grad school.

Does this count as a blog post? I sure hope so.

I’ve been at my current job for almost two years, and there are still days when I think exactly like this. Even more than two years since being summarily dismissed from the Job-That-Wasn’t, I still, as I confessed earlier this week, have nightmares about it. I still have my moments when I forget that my bosses and co-workers are NOT like the people at the job-that-wasn’t. Earlier this week, I was on the verge of panicking, and was fully cognizant of the fact that there was no reason to panic, but for some reason my brain still anticipates the reaction I would have received at that awful place.

I know I’ve talked about it 1000 times in this space (but it’s my space, and I’ll repeat myself if I want to) but I still don’t know that I will be able to properly convey how much this job has truly been among the things that saved my life since I came back to Jersey in shame two years ago. July 17, 2008, actually. That was the date I knew I was coming back, and that I was coming back for awhile.  Six weeks later I was very lucky to start this job. This job made me feel capable of something again, even when it was just putting together a bunch of meeting materials. The lack of questions I was asked is why March 18, 2009 and everything after were not nearly as horrible as they could have been.

This job saved my life.

Joe’s been in California, apartment hunting, so I haven’t been harassing him with my usual rounds of cover letters and questions. He emailed last night to agree to feed my cat next week (even though the cat is a racist) and I can’t wait to tell him about My Plan. I would not even be capable of thinking about making this plan if it were not for Joe being my sounding board and support system. He said recently, that he never would have imagined the weird friendship we’ve developed, where we hang out and talk endlessly about careers and existential crises (mostly mine) and dating. I’m sure there’s a sector of the population who would call it fate that I ran into him one morning at the bus stop in O-town, almost three years ago now. That, and several other bus rides, is how he came to be the person who drove me to work the week I was stuck and who reads constant drafts of my schizo cover letters.

Joe has saved my life.

Joe is also the reason that Brent and I talk now, constantly exchange emails. We’ll never be the same as we used to, but we shouldn’t. He was still there at my one year in March, because he understood why it was such a big deal. They all did.

My old friends have saved my life.

I had actual work to do this morning; a change of pace, as summer here has been dead. Last summer, I exchanged countless emails and was distracted by dozens of gchats with people from Message-Board-of-Note. David, I hardly think of as being from there anymore, such a good friend he was to me when I really needed it. I still have the text message he sent me after that awful, awful seven days that started with the ride to Chicago and ended with my in the hospital: “You have yourself to get better for you jackass. What else would you need?”

David has saved my life.

The rest, some who I’ve met, some who I haven’t, made me feel as if I was part of something other than just my head. From these internet strangers, I’ve gotten career advice, CDs in the mail, and, with Ellie, countless hours of ridiculous conversation about Hugh Laurie, kittens, and petty-judgmental-thoughts. They made me laugh, they agreed that O-L-B was a jerk, they looked after me via text message, and once, at thirteen days, when I fretted how little time that was, Timothy replied “No, do you know how many HOURS that is? Right now, 13 days is awesome.”

The Message-Board-of-Note saved my life.

And then there’s me, who bemoaned the fact that 2010 is half over, and that I’ve gotten nowhere. That, on a Friday afternoon, I am sitting barefooted and cross-legged in front of my computer at the same job that saved my life, unmotivated to finished the three job applications that are 3/4^th done, and also, already ready to give up on dating because it isn’t that much fun, and the distraction it provides isn’t worth the opportunity cost. I am twenty seven years old, very much single, and still answering phones, among my many other responsibilities.

But I am 190 or so days into 2010, whereas two years ago, I didn’t even know 190 hours. I’m pretty pragmatic (some days, pessimistic), still filled with regrets for the could haves, would haves, and should haves, and still could afford to lose at least another five pounds.

But there are days that I hope. There are days that I am able imagine that I will one day have a life that is not this. I still can’t picture myself with someone else, and I can’t imagine a successful career, and really, there’s nothing tangible in my vision of My Plan. But there’s just this vague sense that I can do something else, and that one day, I will have a life again, that things will get better, because they already are. I am quite far away from the depths of Depression and darkness and utter stupidity that made my life a living hell for most of 2007 and 2008.

And I got myself here. I proved my worth and I got myself this job. And then, after many false starts, I rallied the troops and I finally got myself the help I needed, that came in ways I never expected it could. And that’s why, on an ordinary Friday afternoon, I’m sitting here writing this sappy, over the top, melodramatic entry, because I didn’t really realize what happened.

Because somehow, when I wasn’t paying attention, I managed something I didn’t know I was attempting.

I saved my life.