Tuesday - Resumes. Free. Take one. Please?

[ninanevermore]

Today while I idly sipped coffee while staring into space (which is not so different from a drive into work as you might think), I was thinking that I didn't expect myself to feel this discouraged this early on. I didn't expect to feel discouraged until after my puny two-weeks pay severance pay had been posted to my account and spent. Yet here I am, feeling mopey, and I haven't even received my first unemployment check.

"With your qualifications and background, I'm sure you'll find something in no time!"

I'm already tired of hearing these words. They come right after the apologetic speech about how the person doesn't need someone like me at this particular time, despite my greatness. Ah, well, thanks for taking the time to consider me. Yes, I will keep in touch. Do tell your friends about me, so they can decide that they don't need me, either. I agree, 37 is a great age to be - well seasoned, but not yet stale. Something will surely come my way. Thanks for wishing me good luck.

On the up side, I do have more time these days to think and to write, which should make me happy. My paper journal is filling up fast, as is my poetry notebook. Those two books are used to a once-weekly ration from me, and they are thrilled to grow fat with words almost every day this past week and a half. The time that I spend online these days is on job sites and sending out emails for advertised positions. After that, I'm usually so sick at looking at a computer screen that the last thing I want to do is post a blog entry.

Nevertheless, I have to get back in the habit, because I keep writing them in my head (mostly while I'm in the shower) and they need someplace to go. So I'm going to make an effort to do better after today.

I have to start telling the stories overflowing from my head before they tear a hole in my skull as they claw to get out. I am that full of stories. Stories about Jeff's scandalous grandmother and his father's tragic first wife. Stories about my friend Joy, and even some additional stories about the notorious Patty (from whom my unemployed status must stay a secret, lest she show up and want to hang out). I have stories to tell about my son, who is mastering the use of language at lighting speed. Just to name a few.

After all, that's why I have a storytelling blog - to give these stories some place to go. If I don't write these things down, they may as well have never happened. Too many wonderful and interesting things have transpired in the world around me, and it would be a sin to let these stories dissipate with time, like so much smoke.

Which brings up the real problem with my job search, and why it is bringing me down. What I do for a living, every job on that resume of mine, has nothing to do with what I am and what I love. I am a storytelling and a poet - two things that I don't know how to make a living at. I freeze at the idea. The thought of making a living doing something that gives me joy in addition to a paycheck strikes me as too decadent to consider. Not to mention, I have no clue how to go about it.

No, I work to live and to get by, but I write to feel alive. It's best to keep these things separate. It's a curse, this unrequited love I have for the written word, but I only know how to live in a cursed world. If the written word were to love me back, it would throw my whole universe out of balance.

If I get to come back in another life and have a God-given gift, I hope it won't have anything to do with the writing. Instead, I want to come back as a talented, driven investment banker. The world can always use more of those guys, and they make a lot of money, which is something I really crave.

I know that money can't buy happiness, but it sure can make you comfortable in your misery, and I sure do like being comfortable.


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Comments

[1smart1.livejournal.com]

Hey you! Get out of my brain!!

And stop writing the very exact things that I am thinking!!!

[neanahe.livejournal.com]

Bwahahahahahahahah!

making a living doing something that gives me joy

[regatomic.livejournal.com]

it's the best way to spoil it,.
its why i quit graphic design, engineering and teaching,.. when you become a performing monkey dancing for others,.you loose the drive to do it for yourself,..o.o

Re: making a living doing something that gives me joy

[neanahe.livejournal.com]

Ah, but I am a performing monkey, no matter what. The decision lies in what form of hoop I want to jump through, and whether or not that hoop is on fire.

[altzen.livejournal.com]

You are reading my mind, too. I always tell people that I wish I could have gotten a useful skill like science or finance - something I was good at that involved a clear path to cash. With writing it is so much more complex and subjective - so much more room for self-doubt. But the stories keep coming and there is nothing you can do. As you say, they "tear a hole in the skull as they claw to get out". I am not sure what to do with this, either, but I know I cannot stop it. I can only cope with it and enjoy it when I can. The end goal is to figure out the peculiar alchemy of turning words into money, but most days this seems impossible.

You are right - it does seem too decadent to do what you love, but for some people it is possible, and that means that it is something that does happen. So why couldn't it happen for you? You seem intelligent, insightful, kind and curious enough to make it happen. You have talent at this - I have seen it, read it. Do not discount your dream because someone has told you it is impossible - at least try before you decide that it is. You have time now, that is the gift of unemployment. Maybe you can use it and learn to move slowly in a world full of baby steps - like your son and his words. Eventually he will speak confidently, and so will you.

"As a writing man, or secretary, I have always felt charged with the safekeeping of all unexpected items of worldly or unworldly enchantment, as though I might be held personally responsible if even a small one were to be lost." - E.B. White

[neanahe.livejournal.com]

There are multiple factors to succeeding at something like writing on a professional level. I have the talent factor, but that is not the most important factor at stake. My talent factor is negated by something I call the "wus factor." A mediocre talent can make it big if they have the balls to put themselves on the line and face rejection again and again. Likewise, a great talent can languish if they don't have the balls. Where I fall on the scale of mediocre to great is up for debate, but on the scale of brave to wus, I am a full-on wus.

Don't even get me started on the "sheer dumb luck" factor, the "right place at the right time" factor or the "it's not what you know but who you know" factor. These things are the real keys to success, no matter what your goal is...

[jenelycam.livejournal.com]

*HUGS FOR NINA*

It's hard to make a living at art too. That's why I'm still stuck doing daycare. I'd SO love to be able to support myself and my family with my talent(s), but it's not meant to be for now anyway. I'll keep trying!! ^^

I hope you find something soon!!

[neanahe.livejournal.com]

Thanks! *hugs Dawn back*

[aymen.livejournal.com]

I completely relate to you. My boyfriend and I had a talk about him looking for a job and he's pretty much feeling the same way you are too. ::hugs::

[neanahe.livejournal.com]

*hugs back*

[sidneymintz.livejournal.com]

I've been meaning to tell you how sorry I am that you lost your job.
I hope you can take this time off to figure out what works best for you and your family.
Everything will all work out, I just know it will :)

[neanahe.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I know in my heart that everything always does work out, one way or another. It's just waiting for all the pieces to fall into place that is so harrowing.

[coupesetique.livejournal.com]

I wish you would have been my English teacher in high school or in college. You'd be a good teacher. :-)

[neanahe.livejournal.com]

I always thought I would have been, too. I realized that when I had 6 credit hours to go in college and it was a little late to shift gears. Oh, well.

[coupesetique.livejournal.com]

Do it do it do it!

Go back and finish those credits! I think your students would really like you. Plus? You'd get summers off with E. :-)

[shesacharmer.livejournal.com]

Could have literally posted this in my journal verbatim. Except you excel at writing, where as I just flop around like a fish out of water.

[neanahe.livejournal.com]

Wow. Once in awhile I seem to stumble on one of those universal experiences. And here I almost didn't post this because it seemed a little self pitying.

Having so many people relate to it a) makes me feel less alone and b) makes me realize that I'm not so special and unique, after all. *sigh* ;P

[welfy.livejournal.com]

I know how you feel. People tell me I ought to get a career in writing, but I feel like it wouldn't be fun for me anymore once it became a job.

I could definitely see you writing a book. A storybook. I'd buy it. :^)

[neanahe.livejournal.com]

Writing a book is the easy part. The real trick is finding someone else willing to publish it. 0_o

[hermes-wade.livejournal.com]

Write a novel! Or a short story! You definitely have the chops for it, and you now have the time as well.

[neanahe.livejournal.com]

"Have the time" and "have a two-year-old" are not things that one can claim at the same time, at least not while keeping a strait face...

[hermes-wade.livejournal.com]

I suppose that is true. :) And you can't really justify sending him off to day care or what have you while you are at home. :(

[neanahe.livejournal.com]

Yes I can, at least until the money runs out. Starting next week, he's in daycare only 2 days a week so I can job hunt and interview (assuming anyone wants to interview me) on those days.

[hermes-wade.livejournal.com]

Yay! Good luck!

[callmekili.livejournal.com]

On the up side, I do have more time these days to think and to write, which should make me happy. My paper journal is filling up fast, as is my poetry notebook.

sometimes, the universe has a way of making things happen to allow us to do stuff that we werent making the appropriate time for on our own...

What I do for a living, every job on that resume of mine, has nothing to do with what I am and what I love. .....The thought of making a living doing something that gives me joy in addition to a paycheck strikes me as too decadent to consider. Not to mention, I have no clue how to go about it.

since you have time now, why not just go around to publishing companies?.. maybe start a book... etc.. there are tons of things that you could do with your skills...just because your current job experience isnt necessarily in the field of what you like to do doesnt mean that you cant explore job opportunities that might give you that kind of experience that you are lookin for... in the meantime, you can look into columns, piece writing... all kinds of stuff for even something simple like a newsletter that goes out to a small group of people, like a church, or maybe a school board, etc...