I was still shaking and out of it last Friday when I met up with my two favorite-former-co-workers for lunch. After lunch (where I barely touched my food) I came back to the office to visit with random people I’d worked with.  It was awesome to see people. Are there words for how much I miss my old job? Probably not, and probably I’m wearing rose colored glasses, but I’d love to put an EBC binder together. At least I know I’m good at that. I’ve been told otherwise, but I think I’m fucking awful at my current job.

So, last Friday, my most favorite ex-coworker pulled me into the office she’d claimed for herself and told me to spill it.

“Sweetie, you’re shaking. And you look terrible. I’ve never seen you like this. Not when things were the worst here and not even when you first started and you were afraid of me.”

I sank down in the visitor’s chair and whispered a few things that were going on with me. She gave some feedback. She scolded. “Maybe DC is just not right for you?” she asked.

“Maybe.” Maybe. Maybe this move was a mistake. Maybe. I live under a flight path in DC, did I ever mention that? From my bedroom window, I can see the flights lining up to land. I don’t know why I find romanticism in this, but I do.

I’m the baby of the group of former co-workers. Intentional or not, they looked out for me, and still do. How did I get so lucky? The-Job-That-Was remains one of the best things that ever happened to me. When I say that job saved my life I’m not exaggerating. It gave me purpose, and it gave me confidence. I didn’t know I was so capable until my first week there my boss handed me a random spreadsheet, and unknown to me, expected just an easy Excel formula. I, thinking something much more complex was required, fussed around with it and figured out a way to automatically get updates on currency conversions. And then after that there was this big project with an outside law firm and I kicked ass, took names, and that’s why my status changed from temp to perm. My current job has not afforded me the opportunities to show I’m awesome. So. Shrug.

One week later, I’m out with current co-workers, and it’s practically a waste of my time. Oh, and also, Cute-IT-Boy is gay, head meet desk. Normally, my gaydar is quite good, but apparently when a Libertarian is involved it malfunctions. See also, extremely-cute-but-also-gay-libertarian boy from UChicago. Friday was a total failure. This guy referenced Milton Friedman! I totally swooned. Yes, it is probably fucked up that that is what gets me to swoon, but there it is. Arg. I had figured that he was gay because he is way to well dressed to not be, but he wasn’t pinging my gaydar. Not. Fair.

It’s around 6:40am. There is still the hum of airplanes overhead, and now there are stupid birds starting to chirp.

I miss New Jersey and my old job. I don’t want to go home, I want to stick it out here. But I don’t know if I can. I am so freaking emo.

This NaBloPoMo has been far easier than the exercise was in November.

Sure this little foray into dating has given me plenty of material, as has the whining about the job search. The sad thing is, that I have attempted to be mature, to show restraint, and to acknowledge that things are Not That Bad and Could Be Worse.

Yes, I could whine more if I tried.

Another month approaches, and July 1 means 2010 is half over. I won’t even go into the many reasons why this is depressing. In some ways, it surprises me that I fight so hard to not be pessimistic and doom-and-gloom. I used to be famous for my pessimism.

David (brilliant, as usual) summed it up that he and I are both optimists who have been shown the proof of pessimism. Appetite, with an opinion of attaining, is called hope; the same, without such opinion, despair. – Thomas Hobbes

Oh Thomas Hobbes, how you slay me.

I still often have this (delusional) belief that things will get better, because they have to. But that is total fucking bullshit. Things don’t have to do anything. The universe is completely random. Sure things could get better. But they could also get worse.

That is where I am supposed to pause, and express gratitude, that things are not as bad as they could be. It is something that I have trained myself to do, having been in rock bottom situations far, far worse than the existential angst of not having the career track I want or the vague self-doubt of not knowing what I did to make a boy reject me.

Yes, I am grateful it is no worse than that. But after months upon months of just getting by on “it could be worse” my passion for that brand of gratitude wanes, and I couldn’t care less about the ways in which things could be worse, because things not being worse hasn’t really gotten me anywhere. I am still in the exact same place I was when things were worse. Maybe my head is a bit more together but the raw statistics are the same.

I wish that I had a more eloquent way to sum up what I’m thinking and to emphasis the muted despair I feel. Because I want no mistake about the fact that my despair is in perspective – my problems are white, middle-class luxury problems, the type I am afforded the privilege of fixating on. Unfortunately, I’m still human and all the rational thought in the world can’t turn me into a robot that remains emotionless on these issues.

George: I don’t want hope. Hope is killing me. My dream is to become hopeless. When you’re hopeless you don’t care. And when you don’t care, that indifference makes you attractive.
Jerry: So hopelessness is the key?
George: It’s my only hope!

This is how I feel about now. My hope dies last in every sense of the word, and it may kill me first. Sorry Andy Duphrane, but right now it’s not fear that’s keeping me prisoner. It’s hope.

You wouldn’t know it from my entries but I start each day with optimism. I wake up, brew a travel mug of coffee, and I drive to work with a good attitude about my hours in front of me. By now, I recognize that this optimism is unsustainable; despite my better efforts, it’s often gone by 11 AM.

Today was no different, except I’m writing this at 9:20 am, and won’t be able to post until later because OUR INTERNET IS DOWN. I don’t know what the issue is; internal stuff is working fine.

(this happened once at PLI and I wrote this post about how I wanted time to slow down anyway. I know it is terribly unhealthy the way I envy the girl who wrote that, but I do)

I don’t understand how our IT department cannot solve this, as it has been down for 90+ minutes.

[ok. Internet is back. Thank god]

And apparently, my optimism is crushed once I check my email and find no response from jobs or boys.  I don’t understand boys. I really don’t.  I mean, I would never describe myself as “hot.” But I’ve always been confident in the fact that I’m quite passably cute. But with this online dating thing, are they fleeing based on my Facebook photos? Evidence seems to suggest this is possible. Evidence also seems to suggest I am neurotic and over think things. However, given that NOTHING has worked out in the past 7+ months, maybe I have even more flaws than I realized, and I’ve just been walking around in this haze of self-deception.

At this point, anything thing is possible.

Every single morning, I wake up, believing that this could be the day. The job offer might come (which now has dissolved to “maybe I’ll get an interview…” and finally “maybe they’ll be something worth applying to posted.” Or, I might actually hear back from someone in my (admittedly small) network. Or maybe just SOMETHING good, something that is going to move my life forward will happen. Today could be the day.

I think this every single morning. It’s in my head from the minute I wake up. It’s in every song I skip or linger on my iPod shuffle. Every single day, there is a part of me that genuinely believe today is when it will finally happen.

 And every single day, for the past 6+ months, I’ve been wrong.

I’ve tried really hard to be happy (or at least “okay”) with the seemingly neverending string of disappointments. I really do try. I constantly remind myself of the good in my life and how things are not as bad as they could be. But those mind tricks are becomming less and less effective every day. I could give it a rest, sure. I could stop looking for the summer, try to relax and have fun, but what good will that do me? I will still be HERE in September, a place that I started to put together an escape plan from almost ten months ago.

And June is already half over. Time is moving at a ridiculous pace; and it’s such a valuable resource, and despite all my efforts, I’m losing it.