Stalled Car on a Highway Exit

We travelled back to the city in the dark tonight. I never like travelling in the dark. Especially when I'm tired. I've been tired a lot lately. And sick. Truth be told, I'm sick and tired of feeling this way, but I can't seem to get over it.

Exitting into the city, there was a car with its hazards lights on. It was parked in the space between the highway and the exit. It was small and white. It was undecided.

Highways are made with exceptionally large shoulders here these days. This evening we had chatted about a highway I learned to drive on whose shoulder was non-existent. Not here. That car's parking spot of indecision is case in point. Why is there enough space for a small car to sit, safe and secure, in limbo, between the exit and the highway? They make highway shoulders too big these days.

My father will work until the day he dies. He loves his job. He spent a lot of time, when I was younger, not loving his job. It seemed as if he was unemployed or my mother was unemployed. I was a child, I am probably exagerrating. Those were scary times. My life seemed uncertain until the year we moved. After that, life always had a plan. There was always some path I was going down that I knew would lead me to happiness. Those paths have all run out of exits.

I was offered a temp job today. Eight to ten weeks doing some filing for two bucks less than I said I would work for. I thought about it for an hour and then called the agency back. I've revamped my resume, and asked if they wanted a copy of my most recent resume that illustrates why I deserve what I ask for in these jobs I have no training nor experience in. We'll see what happens...but I don't want those jobs either.

Day Two of Unemployment

Yesterday it hit me. This unemployment thing is not that bad. First of all, I am always looking for new experiences to draw on for that day when I eventually have time to write my experiences down. And secondly, now I will have time to write those experiences down.

And then it really hit me. This is my life. You know, we all have those moments when we realize that life actually is actually happening in this instant. I rememember when I first realized it. At first, those moments terrified me. You know those times when you are actually aware that time is ticking by. This is a moment of your life that you will never get back. After the first few years of those scary moments, though, I got used to it. Plus, I realized that my awareness of those moments only lasted for like a minute or two, so I knew I would eventually get over it. We eventually get over everything, don't we?

I'm a planner. I have been my whole life. That doesn't mean that I always follow through on my plans. In fact, it means that I rarely do. But I have always had a plan for my future going on in my head. It's part of the reason I know I will be a good writer. These future plans even have new characters in them and different lives for me and them or us, whether we are together or not, friends or lovers. Sometimes the plans are similar to ones I had in the past but often I change one or two concepts. But I have always envisioned myself in a job that I love, doing something that I want to be doing, and never have these plans come through.

That does not mean that I have not loved my jobs. No, I'm an optimist, I generally find something to enjoy in everything I continue to do on an ongoing basis. Perhaps that is why it terrifies me so much to choose the wrong job now. Because I could. But that's not the scary thing. No, I'm pretty sure I would still make myself reasonably happy wherever I end up. But I realized yesterday that right now I have the opportunity to make my life into one of those future plans that I keep creating for myself. And that is the scary thing.

Good-bye procrastination! Hello the life of a writer! That's it. That's what my unemployment will bring me. It's unconventional. It's a bit crazy to begin when I am $6000 in the hole, but people have done it before and they will do it again. I know I will make the ends meet. It's Christmas season soon, too, so even if I do get hard up, I'll sell out and do retail again for three months. But this is it. I don't have any schedule right now, no prospects of my dream job falling into my lap in the next week, nothing. So this is the perfect time to start living the dream rather than merely planning it.

Hello quarter life crisis!