Jump start

I don't believe in signs. I believe I have control over my life.

But they're there. They're small, but they're there, damn it.

Recent developments have made my days quieter and me more prone to introspection. Not a good thing. I've been feeling anxious and down for a while now, and to combat that, I've tried mixing up my routine to do things that might relax me and get my mind on better thoughts.

So I've been watching a lot of documentaries. They take me back to my childhood when the only movies my parents could afford to rent from the video store were the free educational films. My sister and I ate those up, and I'm happy to find that my appetite for them was suppressed but never eliminated. Huzzah!

One night I was watching a movie about a climber who got separated from his climbing partner in a storm, broke his leg and still managed to climb, crawl and hobble his way off the mountain and get back to his base camp. I didn't think anything of it at the time, but he said something in the interview that resonated with me later. He said that while he was stuck in this ice crevasse with a broken leg and no way, it seemed at the time, to get out, he remembered something he was told or had read or had heard before: The only way to survive is to keep making decisions.

Once you stop making decisions, even small ones, you're fucked.

Later it hit me. That's what I've been doing. I've been sitting and waiting for something to happen, for a perfect job to open up or for something crazy to happen to jar me from my complacency. I guess I'm surviving (I'm typing this afterall), but that's all I've been doing. I wake up. I make the decision to get ready for work. I make the decision to eat (sometimes). I make the decision to go to my shitty job. I make the decision to leave, go home and waste time before bed.

It's surviving but it's hardly living. I've stopped making the vital decisions, the dreaded "big" decisions, the ones that might change my life and make me happier.

I woke up one morning and put on my bikini. I was going to work in the yard. The weeds were choking out the lilies I planted last year and overtaking the paving stones on my tiny patio — more green was visible than stone. About 20 minutes into the task, after my usual early-morning worried thoughts subsided, I began to focus on the task at hand. I thought about what I was actually doing. I was killing plants, plants that have been decided through generations of gardeners to be undesirable. I was ripping the undesirables, the ones keeping the sun and water and nutrients from the desired plants, out of the ground by the roots and tossing them aside. Not only was I tossing them aside, I was gathering them together and dumping their limp bodies in the hot gravel next to my house.

I was clearing out the unwanted so the wanted, the intended could take root, gain strength and bloom.

Then there was the dream in which I was pregnant OH BOY. I have many dreams in which my sister is pregnant (something she never likes to hear, can't imagine why), but I've seldom had dreams in which I was the chosen vessel. A few days after the dream, while on the pot, I looked up its possible meaning in a dream journal I own. (I'm not a nut. I once wanted to be a psychologist. My best friend knew this so she got me several books on dreams, the journal and "Man and His Symbols" by Carl G. Jung and that's the reason for the journal so back the fuck off.) The book's limited, abbreviated glossary of dream symbols had three words to say about pregnancy: a new beginning.

So there. My signs: make decisions, clear out the bad and look for a new beginning.

I applied for a new job this week in a city far from this one. Fingers crossed.

Thanks?

One of the papers I applied to informed me today that they have decided not to fill the copy editor/page designer position for which I had applied. I think my last round of applications was sent out in September.

Thanks for the timely response, assholes.

It's my life

Today, on the morn of my second interview, I received my fourth of eight resumes back in the mail. The first three apparently went to addresses that don't exist, though how I, with my journalistic address-finding skills, managed to accomplish this I'll never know. The last was a postcard informing me they only accept applications online and only when they are hiring. Hmm.

But two of those resumes (sent to different editors at the same place) resulted in today's interview.

For me, one of the hardest things about finding a job is not finding someone who is hiring who thinks I am spectacular enough to offer me her once-in-a-blue-moon position (not that that has been easy). No, the hardest thing for me has been deciding what I really want.

I moved to my fiance's college town in early June. Deciding to move here was difficult. I knew I wanted to be closer to him, and I knew I'd be happy if I did, but I wanted to make sure it was what I truly wanted. Not just what I felt was right, what was convenient or what he wanted. I could have moved home, waited until I found a job, and then move somewhere random, and he could follow me once he graduated. Problem is, he may not graduate before the wedding. Or maybe he will. Or maybe he won't be able to find a job where I am and I will work somewhere for 9 or 10 months and then quit and move elsewhere, which would probably grind on my conscience for years.

But in the end, I knew I would not be happy somewhere random, all on my own. I'm not really an all-on-my-ownsome kind of gal. And so here I am. I have fallen in love with this town and probably wouldn't mind staying here forever ... which is a long time.

Today I interviewed at the perfect place. I would be covering something I am interested in, in a community I love and I wouldn't have to move to middle-of-nowhere-you-are-allll-alone-ville. That's where I interviewed last week, and, after much thought, I have decided to stay put, in a place I love, in the hope that something will turn out in my favor.

Some people do not agree with this decision. Some have told me they think it is dumb and disappointing, if not always in so many words.

Saturday I went to my fiance's cousin's wedding. While they were cutting the cake, several people heckled the groom, asking why he wasn't going to shove the cake in his new bride's face. The groom replied, "You don't have to live with her."

While he was clearly making a joke, it is a good sentiment. Other people do not have to live with my decisions, and I do not have to live with the people who disagree with them, but I must live with my decisions and I must live with myself.

So I shall anxiously wait a couple of weeks, as the perfect job has said I must do, count my blessings, say my prayers, keep the faith that what is supposed to happen, will and know that I have made the right decision for myself, even if everyone else thinks I'm a crazy raving lunatic.

what to do, what to do

I sent out five applications today. Three online and two by mail.

Sometimes when I apply online, I feel like it does not even count. Silly, Internet.

We'll see what happens.

I swear they're doing this on purpose

"Please send resume, work samples, copy of most recent performance evaluation and salary requirements ..."

Let's just play a little game called "I just graduated from COLLEGE and the only newspaper I've ever worked for did not do 'performance evaluations'"!

What the hell, future employers? What. The. Hell?

I would just like to know, do you sit around in your offices all day trying to think of ways to make it impossible for recent grads to get jobs? PERFORMANCE EVALUATION? So, I guess what I'll do is call one of my old bosses, who is in grad school, and ask her to take time out of her day to write some ridiculous letter saying what a great person/worker I am.

Why can't you just ask for references like everyone else?

Maybe I should just say F*** it. Is it worth the trouble? Who knows? Not me.

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