I am doing that thing where I am constantly composing in my head. When I’m walking to down the street, I’m writing paragraphs for future blog entries. When I’m on the Metro I’m rearranging sentences. When I’m trying to fall asleep I’m relaying dialogue for real-life, future conversations that will likely never happen.

And that’s why when it’s past 2:00 am, I roll over and reach under the bed for my laptop, to write this.

It occurs to me, I never sleep very much this particular Saturday night. Every year, when we turn the clocks back, gaining us an hour of sleep, I stay up until 2am to watch the clock flip back to 1:00am (my laptop does it automatically, I think. Maybe I do it by watching the prevue channel? I don’t remember). I find a certain romanticism in this split second – this year I was tired at 12:45 and consciously decided not to watch it.

Of course, now I can’t sleep. Everyone loves this weekend because its a free hour of sleep, and I waste it. I shouldn’t have had all the heavily caffeinated cinnamon tea, but I was reading I Capture the Castle and you can’t read that book without tea.

So because I can’t sleep, I’m doing a few tiny, tiny tasks to get myself back in the swing of things. I found a job to apply for, and so I opened my template for legal assistant jobs, so I can write it tomorrow while my soup cooks. Which sounds silly, but anything to make getting out an application less daunting.

This is not the end of internal angst and probably some tears. Going to the Film Festival and hanging out with people got me about 50% out of my head. And then I wound up 90% back in it a few hours later.

But right now, almost literally right now, I just want to go on record to say I think it will be okay. I think I’ll be okay.

At this time last year, I had my last day at The-Job-That-Was, moved to DC, and started The-Job-That-Wasn’t 2.0.

It feels like yesterday that Keithers and I were sitting on the floor of our living room (we didn’t have furniture yet), eating delivery that we’d ordered using my iPad (we didn’t have internet yet).

I was always waiting for something to make me settle in. For my furniture to get delivered (so I could put away my clothes). For my bookcases to be put together. (so I could get those unsightly boxes of books out of the living room). For a dining room table, so I could sit down and eat a meal like a grown-up.

None of that made me settle into that apartment. And being a 20 minute bus ride from the Metro made me crawl further into myself, which, for an introvert is quite impressive. I would sometimes look at upcoming meet-up events, sometimes I would even half-heartedly RSVP, but I would always cancel. During the day The-Job-That-Was 2.0 just drained everything out of me (which wasn’t much).

In retrospect, maybe I shouldn’t have gone back to that apartment after getting out of rehab. Nothing good has happened within those walls.

This is what it feels like: A month ago, I quit my job, moved to DC, and started a new job. By two weeks ago I hated my new job. A week ago I got back from rehab, and now it’s time to start looking for a job.

This is what it looks like: I am unemployed with a stack of medical bills. I have boxes to unpack – I live in Virginia now. I think I gained back all the weight I lost. I have a scar right between my eyes.

I don’t have an articulate way to end this, so I’ll just default to my go-to song lyric about time going by at a ridiculous speed:

And I thought about years; how they take so long & they go so fast

August 3, 2011

I am on a southbound train from Kingston, Rhode Island. It’s a seven hour ride to DC. My pseudo-cousin Adam will be keeping me company until we hit New York, but after 4 ½ straight days with me, he’s probably had enough.

There is so much going on, and so much I haven’t written about. At first, I thought I’d talk about the events leading up to this, but better to just be blunt: a few days before I left for vacation, I spent 4 ½ days in the hospital, detoxing. Relapse, as they say in AA, is not a requirement.

But it is a reality. Since getting out of rehab I have been more of an anxious, depressed mess than I’ve been in my whole life. We’re talking panic attacks in the shower, fear of leaving my apartment, and vague fantasies of stepping in front of a bus. I was waking up every morning with knots in my stomach and I’d lie there, sometimes for hours trying to make it go away. My doctor and I still hadn’t stumbled upon the perfect combination of medicines to keep me sane, and so I turned to what I knew would work.

Because vodka quiets my head and allows me to breathe. Of course, I wake up even more anxious the morning after, but in panicked moments when I can’t sit still for even 30 seconds, when my legs are shaking on the escalator out of the Metro, when I can’t finish a fucking job application, I don’t care.

While I was in the hospital, I also found out that my roommate was moving out at the end of the lease. We had previously planned to stay month to month through December. So of course, I freaked. I was hooked up to a heart monitor, and I watched my heart rate skyrocket on the screen.

So that happened. And there is nothing I can do but pick myself up and keep going.

The day I was admitted to ER (I went to Urgent Care that day for a completely unrelated injury sustained while drunk, which is another story, and I was clearly in the throes of alcohol withdrawal, so they sent me to ER) I had my iPad with me, so I was furiously emailing people, posting on Message-Board-of-Note, and reading stupid things on the internet to distract myself.

I offhandedly mentioned that when my iPad battery died I was going to be bored out of my mind.

Not only did I get a ton of well wishes from my Message-Board-of-Note friends, I got very pretty flowers from one of the guys in the DC area, and a visit from another guy who lives in NoVa. He brought me stuff to read and food that wasn’t hospital food. And he brought me a brand new iPad charger. And pajama pants. Which was pretty much the sweetest thing ever. My roommate also came by with my cell phone charger; he’s been really worried about me, and I feel terrible for putting him through so much stress.

My friend who visited me, also drove completely out of his way last Sunday to drive me the whole 7 minutes to my apartment. And then drove me to Safeway to drop off my new prescriptions and waited for me while they were filled when I could have easily walked home.

And I may have found a solution to my housing problem, even though it will mean a fortune in self-storage fees. I have a million things to do before the end of August, but having a project feels good. It’s helped me get back into the swing of applying for jobs, albeit very slowly.

So, a few days later I came back to Jersey, went to Trivia Night with Brent and Joe (and lost horribly, due to a Disney question), and then rode up to Rhode Island with the parents. No matter how old the pseudo-cousins and I get, we are still “the kids.” When we go out to eat there’s a kids side of the table. When there’s too many of us to fit around the dining room table, the kids eat outside, the adults eat inside. I spent tons of time at the beach (producing uneven burn lines), walked to Cumberland Farms, spent a morning at the Umbrella factory/visiting old Charlestown haunts, and ate a ton of delicious food. And laughed a lot with my pseudo cousins over memories of all our years in Rhode Island.

This train won’t hit DC until near 10:00 pm, so I’ll probably take a cab home and then collapse. This coming Saturday, a friend who I haven’t seen in about 15 years is coming into DC and we’re going to play tourist. I’m buying dinner for my friend who visited me in the hospital on Sunday. That is ridiculously social for me.

It’s probably sounds strange, but I feel better than I have in a long time. Way better than I felt when I got out of a rehab.

This won’t be posted until Thursday. Friday. By the time I get home, liquor stores in DC will be closed, so I’ll have made it another day. That’s 15  16 days. Gotta start somewhere.

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.

.

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 one time. Ok, maybe ten). A battle not to confuse nostalgia with doubt (“One starts with “N”, one starts with “D” Did you already forget how to file?”) Freaking out a little, 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”).  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, than anyone could do) this is far more irreplaceable.

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.

.

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’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.

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.

Fact: Obsessively checking your email is unhealthy whether you are waiting for responses from boys or from jobs. I know I said in the past that maybe boys could at least distract me from the fruitless job search, but I think at the end of the day I just wind up double insane.

I am going to actually LEAVE THE OFFICE during my lunch break, because I don’t know, fresh air, or some such nonsense. But it never fails: I go out (and while this is, in sum, likely healthier than sitting in front of the computer for that hour) and am so disappointed to return to an empty inbox.

(I really need to get a life) ((I KNOW THAT! THAT IS WHAT I AM TRYING TO DO)) (I am talking to myself via parentheticals. Clearly progress is stalled)

Fact: I will never get a new job or a boyfriend.

And yes, I know that is entirely too fatalistic, and that if I were the type of blogger who had many readers, I would likely get a dozen comments about how that is not true. However, I will never, nor to I aspire to, be the type of blogger with a lot of readers (probaby because I have a bad attitude) and so when I make this statement, I am not fishing for comments but merely admitting to myself that that is what I feel (and fear). Putting it in words means that it is real, so I am loathe to do so, but there is it.

I am not supposed to fear; in fact, fear is supposed to be the enemy, the underlying source of all misery (that is what I have been told, over and over again). But it is there. I haven’t had one in person interview (other than the Libertarian fellowship) and in the past 6 months I’ve generally managed to be waiting on one possibility at almost all times. (It helped that one company took two months of interviewing to reject me). Now I am not waiting on any possibilities, I just have applications out that will not get responses. I am out of places to look. My network is quiet. I am back down to no leads, no prospects, and no hope.

As for boys, I haven’t been on a date in more than two years, if you can even call O-L-B a date, which is likely even more pathetic.

I’m going to go for a drive now, and try to resurrect the decent mood I was clinging on to this morning. Self pity is not a pretty color on me.

I am inclined to complain today, because I have to go to a family gathering that I REALLY do not want to go to this weekend, which sort of kills any “looking-forward-to-the-weekend” feelings I may have, but I’ve also had enough therapy to know that I can CHOOSE to let it not kill the positive feeling of anticipating two days of freedom. Allegedly, anyway.

And then there’s my wretched inability to focus, and the fact that I’m stretching for something to write about today, which is a bad sign, given that it’s only Day 4. And the corollary to my lack of focus is that items on my overly ambitious to do list remain uncrossed. (To-do lists are another thing I cannot do with complete sincerity. I don’t know what my problem is, except Charlotte probably knows what I mean, because she is my blogging soul mate, and David would probably know too)

And let’s not even get into my vague melancholy about the five year college reunion that I have no desire to attend, but it’s only because I have no reason to attend, and part of me wishes I had a reason to attend, and that sentence makes no sense.

I am inclined to complain today…but

I couldn’t figure out what to write today (a bad sign, since it’s only Day 4) and so I resorted to trolling through my archives. Amongst the daydream of a dual-degree program and the amusing things my friends say, there was this, what I called a “State of the Rachel”  entry.

I feel like I don’t need one of those now, I’ve been writing often enough that I don’t need to update myself on the fact that I’m frustrated with being marooned in Jersey, that I’m bored, that I’m unfocused. But in that entry, I wondered how the hell I was going to do “this” for another six months.

The “this” that I was referring to ended.

So while I am inclined to complain today…

I must say to myself (grudgingly) that this too shall pass. Even my next post, at this time last year, believed just that. And although the Promised Land Keith speaks of is still far away (and, in fact, may never be, in that iteration, for reasons unrelated to me), this is not the same place that I was last June.

Last June I didn’t have the option to leave work at 3PM on a Friday, let alone apply for a job. (Last June, I was also daydreaming of dual degree programs. A JD + an MA in international relations, because I enjoy collecting advanced degrees. It’s a good thing that as a woman, I reserve the right to change my mind, because there’s two issues with that daydream now. I don’t want to go to law school. And I don’t want to be a lawyer. You can see how this would be a problem) Last June, it was all about getting through the day, and also surviving to November.

And while I am inclined to complain today…

(Because my job sometimes depresses me, and weekends can get lonely, and I miss the city)

I have to force myself (again, grudgingly. I am incapable of doing this with complete sincerity) to acknowledge the good things. Like I came home yesterday to find a box from Starbucks containing bags of my favorite coffee, a gift from my bosses. Because really, I have the best bosses ever. And there’s another job somewhere that I might actually want to work, and so if there’s a posting, and I can get an application together, than at least there’s a chance, however slim the possibility may be. (Although I’m still not sure if it’s even a good idea to think positively of the existence of slim possibilities). And in the midst of depressing days, Message Board of Note can still, on occasion, make me laugh.

And maybe, if I keep telling myself all this, I will start to believe it.

.

I should get this in before the WordPress backend crashes on me again.

The day started off poorly (forgetting my travel mug full of freshly brewed coffee on the counter) and while it would be too much to call the morning a slow and steady decline, the plateau is not very pleasant. Actually, if you want to start my day by the clock then my after midnight check of my work email, the neurotic replies I composed in my head, and the junk food I ate can definitely be added to the column of “reasons why this is not going to be a banner day.”

I am currently attempting to compose a cover letter because “what else is new.”  What I really need is a means to concentrate on something for more than 30 seconds at a time.  Same old story; the situation is suitably bleak enough to sap your motivation, which is self defeating, because not doing anything is certainly not going to get you anywhere. David and I are currently having our usual conversation about bleakness and other career related woes that are too depressing to go into. David and I are both intelligent, talented people with (I think) a lot to offer, yet we both find ourselves unhireable.

We should go into business together, although doing what, I have no idea. We are the people that pull off the impossible and the incredible at zero hour, but we do it in situations and circumstances where there is no opportunity for recognition or reward. And yes, we have both tried the avenue of being your own advocate. Working for dying offices is not a place to nuture talent.

I get asked to do all sorts of crazy things, develop new skills on the fly, and I always pull it off admirably, with no time and no budget. You’d think that’d be something that’s valued.

Instead, I’m hiding out in my boss’s office, because my cube is in a high traffic area, and they’re loud today. Instead, I waste my mid-now-late 20s endlessly tweaking a resume that’s getting me nowhere. I know that this is the only subject I write about; that it’s boring, it’s endless, and that you all wish I would quit my whining.

I wish that too. But what I really wish is that I could find a place where I could be productive, where I could actually do something.  I just want to be found valuable.

I’m sure my therapist would have a field day with that one.

Yesterday sucked. I think it was probably my worst day ever at this job, to the point where I was in tears.I rarely cry at things that aren’t movies, but the trifecta of stress, frustration, and general overwhelmed-ness, built up, and for a few minutes, I cracked. Yesterday, I definitely felt that my job sucked, and I was just angry about the situation.

And then I pull back, and there is STILL this reluctance to complain, because it’s not as bad as The-Job-That-Wasn’t. I was sort of relating this to a co-worker last week, that no matter how upset I get about things at work, it was so bad at The-Job-That-Wasn’t, that I really can’t let myself get too bereft. She likened it to an abusive relationship; (“at least this job doesn’t hit me!”) which is overstating the case quite a bit, but accurate in a black-humor way.

It’s not just the job that’s getting to me. My undergrad is having a 5 year reunion in June, and there’s a facebook group for it, and I stupidly looked through pictures people are posting and got depressed. I knew maybe one person in any of the pictures, but they’re all having typical collegiate fun and reminiscing and blah blah blah I-Had-A-Lousy-College-Experience. Some people are traumatized by their high school experiences and you just want to tell them to get over it. Some days, I’m still not over the fact that I missed out on the college experience. I don’t have friends from college, I don’t have pictures from college, I don’t have memories from college. It was 3.5 years I got through as quickly as I could. Most of the time I am over this, and have made my peace with it.

Occasionally, the resentment and anger at myself creeps up and then I just start thinking about how I wish I could have done it all differently, and how different my life could be right now (different how, I’m not sure) and really, it’s just messy self-pity that really shouldn’t be indulged.

Also, “Welcome to Whereever You Are” came up on iPod shuffle on my way to work and it made me teary. (“You’re caught between just who you are/and who you want to be”) Clearly the stress is getting to me.

A pile of half written posts sit in my drafts folder. Ones that, I swear to god, go past the whining and complaining. This past week has gotten to me, in little ways I didn’t expect it to. This happened once before, just before Christmas. I’m experiencing a similar sort of discombobulation.

And then also; May is going to suck. So much is going on at work. I’ll make some money from overtime, but I also haven’t applied to one job this week and the whole month of May is looking to be the same type of frentic pace. And also; it’s already May.

Last night, in one of my half written drafts, I started to think about a May, a ten years ago May, a May that was dreaded and referred to only in hushed tones, but that, when it arrived, my utter impatience had already forced the issues and dealt with the fallout, which softened the blow and it was anti-climatic. I think of six years ago May, which was eerily the same, in which I viewed more sunrises than in the rest of my life combined and drank black coffee at 2 in the morning. Four years ago May was about silence and quiet regrouping and the beginning of the best of times. Two years ago May was bold faced lies to myself and everyone around me as I pretended to get well.

While one year ago May was just about survival, this May was supposed to be about another beginning. I warned Keithers that I might not have a job by May, that the job market was tough, but really, I’m pretty sure that a part of me was sure I’d have a job in DC by now. In February, May always seems far away and like a time when things will be different.

This May is about false hopes and real, but vague longing and trying not to get depressed about my 27th birthday. May reminds me of New York and makes me desperately miss lunch breaks in Midtown and the way the city shimmers at 9PM on a Thursday and it makes me ask “DC who?” This May is weekends at work, for overtime pay to stash away for a financially secure exit to who the hell knows where, and brings the reminder that I’m not going anywhere this summer except back and forth on the oh-so-familiar curves of Route 287.

April is allegedly the cruelest month, but I can’t find a one word way to sum up May. I just want to get through these thirty-one days. Starting the countdown from today.

I have a few not-even-half written posts sitting in my draft folder. It’s been a weird week. After the latest rejection, I combated my wallowing with my version of Damage Control. This translated into my first fledgling attempts at networking and a revised (again) resume. Joe did say that the new one is “impressive,” so I guess something good has come from the rejection. However, the thought that immediately follows is along the lines of “So what? It isn’t doing me any good NOW.”

I am impatient, etc, etc. I’ve expressed that here a thousand times. Nothing new to see here. Intellectually I know that, theoretically, this super-improved resume could make a difference, but the job post pickings have been slim all of April.  I’m so sick of thinking about this.

And I also don’t have anything else to write about. It’s like I can’t wrap my brain around any other subject. The only activities I’ve been doing are reading YA/kids books (I can’t concentrate on anything ‘real’) and online window shopping. I find myself keeping the TV on in the background but not actually watching it, so low is my concentration level.

Things keeping me sane, or at least keeping me from being too insane: Joe, various random e-mail conversations, the fact that I’ve been managing to keep my room in order, and that in some outfits, it certainly seems as if I’ve lost weight. I don’t weighmyself, so I don’t really know if that’s accurate, but my clothes have been fitting slightly differently.

Things making me insane: Impending office move (and the need to pack/archive/sort through literally thousands of files, the lack of job postings, and online application systems – I hate them.

I had another post about how my weekend was (gym 2 times!) and the waiting, but then I got an answer on one of my jobs that I was waiting on and I didn’t feel like writing anymore.

I applied for and got a phone interview for another Libertarian Job and got the email today that I was not accepted for another round of interviews.

For all the frustrations, even going back to the Libertarian Fellowship, this rejection is the one that has set me off.

I am so unbelievably angry and frustrated and upset. I am to the point where I am personalizing the rejection, even though I know that is absolutely irrational. I am in this head space where I am MAD at these organizations, who are made up of all these people who were probably outcasts in high school and are now reveling in being totally exclusive. In fact, I even wrote a few years ago about how libertarians don’t really want to spread the movement. We [They] like being tiny and exclusive; there’s a sense of pride about it. And so basically, I am NEVER going to break in. I’d have had a greater chance of being asked to sit at the popular girls table in middle school.

I know this sounds terribly petty and sour grapes and whatever of me. It’s not coming from a rational place; it’s a strictly emotional reaction, compounded by the fact that there’s nothing to apply for this week.

I would be good at these positions I’m applying for. And more than anything, I want to be part of the libertarian scene in DC. When I write it out like that, it looks pitiful. I never aspired to sit at the popular girls table in middle school; I didn’t like them, and I didn’t get why anyone would. And truth be told, if I did get what I want, I’m sure I still wouldn’t feel like I fit in; I’d undoubtably struggle. I know this about myself by now.

I listened to Bon Jovi’s “This Ain’t A Love Song” about 50 times today. It’s not lyrically relevant, but for whatever reason, it adequetely captured my mood.

Re-write! I’m heading to DC this weekend. Let’s not discuss how much I spent on a train ticket. I LOVE taking the train but was going to give in and take the bus this time (sooo much cheaper) but it was sold out at any times I needed. So I spent a lot on a train ticket.

And I’m going to spend a lot shopping with Michael. If you want a coupon for 30% off at Old Navy, Gap, or Banana Republic for Thursday-Sunday leave me a comment. I have about 20 invites left. I am buying a proper suit because eventually I will have an interview to rock and I am not going to be scrambling this time.

I’m considering this all a one year anniversary present to myself.

Speaking of the impending anniversary, I thought I would have more to say. That’s usually the case though; if I think something is going to cause me to be reflective, it usually isn’t reflected (literary choice most definitely intended) in my writing. It’s definitely on my mind. I think about it in the car on the way to work, in the music I choose. I think about it while I’m sitting here with no shoes, at job that I’ve complained about a lot as of late, but which has saved my life in two major ways. I think about it, but my ability to write something about what it all means seems to be lacking.

Because there are other things at the forefront of my mind. Like mild worry over a funds transfer I messed up (personal, not work) and how I need to check all my accounts to make sure they are correct, but one of them is at my local bank that is stuck in the Dark Ages and doesn’t do things online.  And the annoyingness of getting home on Sunday. And I really don’t know what else, but something is causing minor anxiety, so I’m spilling it out on paper that inside I’m having a tiny bit of a nutty.

But also, I’m going to finish this entry in a minute and then I’m going to get some mundane things done. And I’m pretty sure that I’m NOT going to be obsessing over the balances of bank accounts righting themselves, because I’m going to be engaged in another task or in the middle of writing an email.

And perhaps, that speaks the most about what this year means.

In just a few days, it will have been one year. One year since I finally hit a point low enough to start climbing back out.

The past 360 days don’t erase the approximately 1,095 that came before it. There are still things (many things) that make me cringe. I don’t dwell, and I don’t even obsess, but the thoughts do come up. I suppose the fact that I can deal with it when the thoughts enter my head is proof of progress. At least I hope it is.

I don’t exactly know how to talk about what this year has been like. Are things better? Yes. Absolutely. But am I really that different? Am I better person? I don’t really know. My father said to me, maybe 355 or so days ago, that he knew the real Rachel had to still be there, somewhere. And if that’s true, and this is the real Rachel, then do my parents like her any better? Sometimes I think my mother expected a personality transformation; that I would suddenly embrace my “family” (we have never been at all close to my blood relatives. I have no feelings for them one way or another. There are close friends of the family who I spent far more time with growing up who I consider family before the people related to me by blood) or I don’t know. And then, it frustrates me that she doesn’t see the ways I’ve changed. My anxiety level has dropped. I deal with things like disappointment better than I have in probably my entire life.

You can’t control what other people think of you, but my parent’s opinion still matters to me. I know they love me and they put up with an awful lot of nonsense from me in the 9 months leading up to 360 days ago, but I don’t really know if they’re proud of me, or if that think that I’m better than I was a year ago, or if they will always, in the back of their minds, think I’m hopeless.

I didn’t expect to go into this here; I guess I didn’t realize that it’s on my mind so deeply. Because I’m not sad today; maybe resigned would be a better way to put it? Although that seems too fatalistic. I mean, I feel pretty GOOD today. Yeah, I’m annoyed that I lost one of my favorite earrings somewhere between the convenience store and my car and home (maybe I”ll get lucky and it will turn up in my car), and it’s a little weird at home because my dad has a bad cold and my mom is annoyed at him for acting like a total baby for being sick, but it’s not a BAD day. I don’t feel depressed when I think about all these things that my parents may or may not be thinking/feeling about me.

(I’m sure this raises an obvious question; why don’t you just ask them?” The answer is that because truthfully this does not cross my mind very often, I believe that I cannot control what they think; I know that I’m doing the right thing and at the end of the day that will have to be enough)

Perhaps the fact that, even with this ambiguity, I am able to go about my day, and still feel pretty good about a lot of things (my boys, without whom, this year would mean nothing. my internet-stranger-friend-boys who also were a network I needed. the six months of expenses sitting in my bank account. the pair of jeans I have on, a size smaller than a year ago) is what really speaks for making progress.

At least, I hope so.