Anxiety as an Excuse to Find a New Nail Color

I knew I'd go through ups and downs during this time off.  Actually, one of my recurring nightmares all through my employed time was that I'd quit my job and was then aimless.  A ginormous map of the U.S. would show up and I'd see little red footprints wander around in loop-di-loops and circles on it.  Always.  The dream always showed a wandering set of

footprints on a map.  I'd wake full of gratitude that I had a purpose, a direction, and decisions to make.  It was better than remodeling my house to get me excited to go back to work.

Twenty-five years passed because sometimes I stuck with it just because the alternative - not knowing what it is I wanted to do would make me break out in hives.  My last venture into "not knowing what I was going to do" stayed with me.  So, yes, I knew these times would occur and I wasn't looking forward to them.

Having put out my resume on several locations, I have obviously gone full blast in pursuing work.  But why?  A big part of it is that anxiety of not knowing, but another large part is trying to overcome my own prejudices and to learn about the companies and the micro-environments within even the large ones.  Don't worry, they sure as hell ain't calling back tout de suite.  This is going to be a long process, I reassure myself.  And then I chew my nails.  You know how I do, sometimes until I bleed.  Yuck.  Time for a manicure.

Blonde Ambition

But this blog is about this experience being unemployed.  I moved this topic out of my travel blog, SoYouThinkYouLikeSushi because it's a journal I'm sharing with my friends about a different type of adventure.  It's actually the adventure of facing one of my worst fears, not having a direction, a driving purpose, a list of things to do which impact a larger sphere of influence than my green grocer.  I need chaos and when I was faced with predictability, it was time to throw myself into my own personal nightmare.

Blonde Ambition gone grey

Having been discriminated against since I took my first professional interview in the 80's (which went something like this:  "Why should we hire you, a young woman, when you plan to leave after a few years to have children."), I'm much less concerned about being discriminated against because of my age than this whole directionless thing.  Anyone who would discriminate against me because of my age, well, they don't deserve my brains, my drive, my horrible singing and fart jokes in the office.  This not having a whole wireless network to fix, and understand, and deconstruct, and play with - that's how large a sandbox I need to feel like I'm doing something.

But it's amazing how quickly the days pass.  I've got two blogs going simultaneously.  I'm writing a poem a day, so I had to put the coursera courses on hold b/c that and writing criticism are taking all my time.  This month's poetry is for a chapbook (a small book of poetry) around death, love, and aging.  If you're up for death, depression, and despair, go check out my thread, The Dirty Days of April on The Poetry Free For All.  I'm also working on writing short stories and have been planting my pots in the garden as spring came to Seattle so early.

I still have time for anxiety though.  But then, I always did.  I've always been open hearted that way.  I embrace my anxiety even as I ask my friends forgiveness.  So, FYI, if you find yourself either voluntarily or involuntarily unemployed, it's part of the game, but really, isn't that the same as a day at work?  I'm not sure how this feeling differs from the other times when I recognize (or was gently informed) that it was leaking out all over the place.  Yet, there were many times I let that anxiety of "not knowing" keep me where I was.  Not sure about that at all, because yes - I am enjoying the exploration, when I'm not gnawing at my fingers.

Gotta go make a mani-pedi appointment... and maybe get my brows waxed... and write another poem... and talk to a new company X... and decide what to wear to the New Tech Meetup.