Keeping the Faith

I've probably talked about this before, but it is hard - really hard - to keep a sunny outlook.  There are days when I feel worthless, days when I feel useless, days when I can spend hours beating myself up over the fact that I don't have a job.  I can look over my job log; the spreadsheet where I faithfully record every position I have applied for, every place and every person I have sent a resume to; and deride myself for the things that I am going for. 

There is the little voice in my head that likes to mock me "Seriously? You think they are going to consider you??" it says as I read a job title.  "Like that's going to happen!" it laughs as I finish off a cover letter and get ready to send it.  It is the same voice that pines for my 'old life' and whines that it wants it back. 

Last week I was back in Seattle, and on a whim I stopped at my favorite market.  I pulled into the parking lot and I found myself getting really sad.  In fact, I nearly cried.  It was so familiar, so achingly familiar, this remnant of my life a year ago that it caught me off guard.  I began to mourn for this wonderful life I once had, and the familiar refrain of "I just want my life back!" began to play on the endless feedback loop in my head. 

Ah yes, that wonderful old life I had.   The job that was unfulfilling, the apartment that had a great view but was on an incredibly noisy street with incredibly noisy neighbors and was structurally damaged; the friends I saw infrequently and the frenemies that came around a little too much.  There were aspects of that life that I loved, but many more that I didn't.

In the end, I think, it is an illusion. A ploy to get you back to 'safe' because right now you don't feel any sense of safety.  It is a dream of a better time that never existed.  I have to believe - have to believe - that something better is just over the horizon for me.  That something will break and will break soon, that will be that better life I have been looking for for the past two years.  It just happens that out of those 24 months, 12 have them have conspired to make me just a bit more uncomfortable.  I do know it is out there, that I am approaching it a bit more every day.  There are times I just wish it would hurry up and get here!