Name:Desiree Country:United States State:New York Metro:Brooklyn Gender:Female
Interests:psychology, reading, volunteering, music (singing and listening), art (in just about any form), writing, cognition, philosophy,yoga, martial arts, cooking, existentialism, love, lust, life, death, cartoons, sushi, dancing (everything from hula to hiphop), dreams, jean-paul sartre, literature, creative writing, neuropsychology, social psychology, intelligence, humanity Expertise:matadoring, dragon slaying, vampire slaying, and just being all around awesome Occupation:Student Industry:Nonprofit
Today I am employed. I have a salary, health insurance, 401K, all that jazz. My income has over doubled. I am a professional (maybe?) I have spent so many nights where I had to put myself asleep with Nyquil due to being an utter nervous wreck about where my next paycheck is going to come from. I know people who've spent months in search of this happening, and indeed, I spent a good 3-4 interviewing & sending my resume out almost every day.
I should feel elated and excited. I should feel relieved and secure.
But, of course, being me, I'm still just afraid....
afraid this might be the wrong choice. afraid this might not be the answer I'm looking for. afraid of things not working. afraid of settling into a routine. afraid I won't be able to exercise my creative voice. afraid of picking the wrong place to live. afraid of spending even more time far away from family & friends (but hey, maybe I'll actually be able to afford a visit or two now :-/ ).
and I haven't even started the job. Uhg...
I'm trying to stay positive. This is what I wanted right? I put a lot of blood, sweat and tears into getting here. I'm going to do the best job possible and in the process, hopefully really help some people out.
*keeps telling self this, but in reality, isn't sure what to believe anymore*
So yeah, to all you people out there scrounging about for employment, it's only the first step in a series of perhaps even more maddening steps. If it isn't one thing it's the other.
Maybe I need to re-read the Bhagavad Gita....
...the realm of sacred lore
is nature--beyond its triad of qualities,
dualities, and mundane rewards,
be forever lucid, alive to yourself.
Here's to hoping for the best, preparing for the worst, and keeping it real somewhere between all the madness.
(*edit* this post gets a little bit choppy, as right now I am really just trying to collect my thoughts. hopefully someday they will turn into something a little more coherent...)
Right now I am sitting in a Williamsburg coffeehouse, leeching free wireless, drinking an ice coffee, listening to some music, watching people walk past and writing a blog post. If I close my eyes and really imagine, it's almost like being back in Springfield at the Mudhouse. Like nothing happened at all over the past 11 months.
Yesterday was my official last day of work. I was cleaning my desk, and found a thank you note from one of the volunteers, saying how she had really enjoyed being a part of the program. I made a bunch of phone calls to other volunteers, telling them that it was my last week and that someone else would be taking things over from here. They wished me luck and talked about how they had a really great time.
It was strange having a going-away celebration with just my supervisors around. Since I started late, I had to stay later than everyone else I've been working with. These past few days in the office have been strange, to say the least. It's strange walking past all these empty spaces that used to be full of life while memories of things that have happened in them flood my brain. Thomas' desk, Rainbow Park, Family Dumpling, Johnny's Pizza (and it's local rival, Scotti's Pizza), the computer lab, OLPH, Helados, 5th Avenue, Tony, the BPL--these things would have meant nothing to me a year ago.
I've had a number of moments where I feel like everything is right where it should be. When I come into a site, and realize that I've managed to orchestrate every aspect of the program's success there--a confident volunteer, a wide book selection, smiling children, updated announcements. To be way too nerdy, it's a little bit like the part in the Lord of the Rings trilogy after they manage to destroy the ring. "Ok, we did what we were supposed to...now what?" Perhaps this hobbit should get herself back to the shire.
I still ask myself sometimes if any of this ever even happened. It was as if someone told me "Hey, go live this other person's life for a year!" and being a little fed up with my own at the time, jumped at the chance.
Now I'm just back to being me.
Life has been a whirlwind of interviews & goodbyes for the past month. In some ways sitting at this coffeehouse is the first time I've actually taken some time to slow down in a while. Though being recenly unemployed, I'm sure I'll have plenty of time for that.
So, you know that job I talked about in my last post? Apparently I am one of their top candidates. This whole process is enough to drive one to drink (to use one of my mom's old phrases). And it has. Anyhow, I hear back on Tuesday, but I still have 2 (possibly 3) interviews lined up for next week in case it doesn't work out. I don't want to get my hopes up too high.
(Uhg, I am starting to feel the caffeine and I just bought another cup of ice-coffee...blargh!)
So my best friend/lover/other/conversation-partner/laughs-at-my-stupid-jokes/pillow/muh, muh, muh, baybuh/general-partner-in-crime has sailed away to the strange and mythic land of academia to do all sorts of wonderful things.
Meanwhile, my world just lost a little more of its color. That's not to say that it isn't still there, just that I can't see it right now. I wouldn't be too surprised to wake up one day and find myself in a 1940's black and white movie... ((For the record, it's not that dramatic (as the picture). Or perhaps I am not that dramatic. Either way, the real drama is what happens after goodbye. Walking away alone & knowing what you know))
Yet some part of me still thinks that maybe he'll call and ask where I am, and I'll be like "Getting caffinated y0!" and he'll be like "Okay, be right there dude!" (For some reason we talk like early 90's punks in my imagination)
I still curl up in my side of the bed, like there's someone still there to fill the other side.
On top of all this, my roommates have sold the television! The central piece in our drab Bushwick apartment has departed! Probably for the betterment of all of us, but it is still strange how attached we can become to inanimate objects.
The only books I seem to have the attention span for right now are either fantasy or self-help. Fantasy, because it lets me escape into something that doesn't resemble our world at all; self-help, because I'm a sucker for cheesy pick-me-ups. Maybe because, despite being cheesy, there is still some grain of truth to them. "Be true to yourself! Believe in yourself! Don't give up!"
Or maybe that's just what I'd like to believe.
Either way, stress has kept me from really being able to focus on anything else. (Which might explain some of the rambliness of this post)
Anyhow, my body hasn't had this much caffeine in it since college and my head is starting to pound....maybe I will go find something to eat.
I am 9 years old and auditioning with a gaggle of other children for the musical "Oliver." Most of them read a few short lines in Brittish accents that you can imagine only 9 year olds living in Missouri would come up with.
"Pluhs suh, I wont suh muh!"
I have studied the original film with the diligence of only a determined child, taking careful notes on every mannerism, every gesture, every expression, every last detail down to Jack Wild's posture. I got my cassette tape recorder out (you know, the old, clunky, grey rectangular one) and recorded myself speaking/singing in a varitable number of cockney and prim accents. When the film came on, I would pause the VCR and play the recorder. If the sound wasn't up to my preciseness, the whole process would begin again. Pause and play, play and pause, pause, play, play, pause.
Eventually it came to match perfectly. Or at least as perfectly to my 9 year old ears as it could be.
Meanwhile, at the audition, quite a few of the children are sent home after their first reading or two. It is nearing 9:30 pm, and you can tell how late it is in the auditorium due to the sparse number of parents and kids still sitting around.
It is down to myself, and two other girls. We are taken aside and told how talented we all are, and that two of us will play the role of Oliver in the show (one as understudy). We are then each asked, one at a time, to come into the auditorium and sing "Where is love?" for a group of auditioners.
I come in and sing like it is the most natural thing to do, the words come out sad and slow, and in that moment, I am Oliver Twist, lonely and stuck in the workhouse. The auditorium hums in silence.
"Thank you Desiree, that was lovely. We will post our decision sometime next week. Make sure to come back and check."
I go home with dreams of being Oliver and seeing my name on the board. I can't wait till next week.
NEXT WEEK: I enter the building, where a big printed sign says:
"Oliver: Girl #1, Girl #2"
I read over it again, just to make sure I'm not reading reading incorrectly. Then the director shows up with a look of false concern on her face, "Oh, Desiree, we had a really hard time making our decision. But, look, you got a special role also--" she points over to a sign near the lower left corner,
"Soloist #1: Desiree"
My eyes are starting to water...I don't want any of them to see me like this. It's not like I was one of those kids that got sent away after the first reading, or even after the second. They were expecting this. The world is collapsing around me, I feel dizzy and like nothing will ever go right again, I don't understand--"Come on, Desi" my dad says, and we are walking through the parking lot back to the car.
"What's the matter with you?" he asks.
"I..." *gasp for air* "I..." *gasp for more air* "I didn't...I didn't..." *gasp*
"What? What is it?"
"I didn't get the part" I blurt, quickly followed by a torrent of sobs, tears, groans and other noises of agony coming out of my body.
My dad, being the hardened, practical person he is, says "Look, this is going to happen to you all the time!"
"B-b-but....b-but...but it's not fair!" I wail.
"But Desi, that's life. C'mon it'll be okay."
"I'll never be good at anything."
___________________________
I am 20, in love, and it is summer in Springfield. It is strange, the blindness that love creates...but this evening, it's beginning to fade. I'm starting to see--there are too many questions left unanswered, I feel too afraid, he is too flirty around her.
I pull him aside and say "Look, I know she's been sleeping over there. I'm not that stupid, there's only one reason that makes sense to me why this is happening."
"Well, you're probably right." he responds.
It hits like jumping into ice water, my stomache feels sick, my heart falls, my eyes are starting to water and I don't want them to see me like this. I say nothing and walk out the door into the night, I'm sobbing and trying to breathe. I crumple onto a bench at a park, while a couple drunks stumble by. I'm watching the wind blow the branches of the tree above me. I don't want to go back to them.
I feel like nothing will ever go right in the world again. I am so alone, and I wonder what is so wrong with me. Something inside me breaks that night, and I will always wonder if it can ever repair itself.
_________________________________
I am at an interview for the counseling masters program at Missouri State University with approximately 20 other women. The point of this interview is to show that you can be authentic and open with yourself and others, or so I am led to believe by students I know who have completed it before. I attempt to make a point about how it is difficult to be authentic in this situation, because regardless, everyone is trying to make a good impression. Obviously it is competitive if only a few are accepted--therefore everyone is going to go put on their best "authentic" face, or at least the "authentic" face they're hoping that the counseling department wants to see. Particularly in a group interview where everyone is competing to get their ideas heard. What if you aren't one to speak up?
In return, I get a number of confused and disgusted glances. It's like I've just unravelled the whole process. There is a pause, "And how does that make you really feel?" one of panel members asks, staring dead on at me.
"I mean, who is ever who they really are during a job interview? It's the same thing."
Eyes roll, and they continue talking about how "Oh my, how I just love counseling and helping people! This is when I knew I had to be a counselor, blah, blah, blah, counseling."
Then I talk about the cartharsis I've experienced through writing in the past few years, and how I am interested in exploring the therapeutic powers of it in a community setting....maybe?....perhaps?
Silence and more confused glances head my way.
The next week, I get a letter saying that I am not accepted and do not have the characteristics of a successful counselor. I am so confused, this was my plan for after graduation, what am I going to do? I am so screwed, I'm thinking as I'm downing a bottle of Smirnoff.
___________________________________
Finally, I meet someone who makes me feel hopeful, who sends me into fits of writing and planning, who makes things feel a little more right. Ever since that night on a bench in a park in Springfield, MO some piece of me has felt excruciatingly alone. True, there have been friends and lovers, but they could never reach that piece of me. I took careful measure guarding it until now, when layer by layer it slowly starts to unfold open. Exposed, vulnerable, ready to share itself, when right at that very moment, I'm told about "this girl that I really like and am so not over yet."
But by now, this is nothing new.
Maybe the world is just collectively trying to tell me that I suck.
_________________________________
I am 23 and losing my job in a matter of weeks. I am sending my resume and coverletters like mad to employers across the world--not in attempt to gain super-cool-fantastic wealth or a super-cool-fantastic job, just something that pays the bills and I can feel okay enough about to do from 9-5 would be great. But I worry I am still unskilled, I know I am not excused from the fact of our terrible economy, and somewhere in the back of my mind I still see those damn paper signs posted on the bulletin board.
"Soloist #1: Desiree"
If I remember, soloist #1 was a better part than most of the others (the early dismissed kids) got. And perhaps, if I was one of them, it wouldn't have hurt so bad. But the fact was that my dreams were higher than that.
If I was one of them, I'd have stayed in Missouri, gotten married, had kids and worked pushing paper and answering phones or taking care of babies. If I was one of them, maybe thoughts like this wouldn't go through my head. And yet, while I wasn't one of them, I certainly haven't been an Oliver either.
I'm just motherfucking soloist #1.
This morning I had an interview with a group I could get really excited about working for. I think it went good, but really it is so hard to tell anymore. And even if you leave feeling perfect, it seems to mean little. Right now I'm just waiting for them to call, and leave a chirpy sounding voice message saying "Oh hello, Desiree, this is (organization) and we appreciate your interest, we had a hard time reaching this decision, but we decided to go with another candidate. Thanks! Buh-bye now!"
I can already hear it. I've heard it before...or just simply heard silence.
How does one stay hopeful in a time of such hopelessness? How do you find worth when so much echoes you're worthless? How do you find a clear path when every day is a roller coaster?
What am I going to do? I am so screwed, I'm thinking as I'm downing a 40.
......................................maybe I should have just stayed in grad school.
