what sandra thinks

Today is August 31st. (I’m sure by the time I hit publish, it will be September 1st…) And as much as August is my enemy, it sucks that it’s ending.

Warning/Disclaimer/Apology:
Sorry for the less-than-joyful nature of this post. I won’t be offended if you run away screaming now. I know I’m annoying. I also know I’m freaking out. I also know that I’ve been a terrible blogger… I can’t keep up… with anything. I’m sorry.

School started today. (Or yesterday… it’s already after midnight…) My daughter began 3rd grade and she’s got the same (wonderful) teacher my son had. My son began middle school, grade 6. I was nervous as hell for him… and I could tell he was nervous, too. But of course, they both did great. I never doubted it, I was just anxious for my son. I think it’s because he’s my first baby and he’s such a big kid now. I want to stare at immensely adorable pictures of him from when he was two. Also, I hate change… and he’s not especially fond of it either.

But the real crisis in my brain right now is something else. I’ve got to double down on my job search. Of course, doubling nothing gets you… nothing. I truly do not know where to begin (again).

I haven’t been sleeping well. I haven’t been eating much. And as I mentioned up there, I’ve struggled to keep up here… writing, reading. I suck. But I just can’t seem to do much of anything. And fuck, it’s hard to get up at 7am when I’m rarely asleep before 3am. At least John is taking the boy to school… which starts an hour earlier than my daughter’s school.

I love being just Mom. After the layoff, the plan was for me to take a few months off to be just Mom. But it’s been way longer than a few months. And the “just” part has to end… I need to be Mom and… something else.

I haven’t a fucking clue what ‘something else‘ is. I have never had a specific career… What do you do for a living? I have no fucking idea. I’ve never known what wanted to be when I grew up. I suppose I’m grown up now (and not happy about it) and I still don’t know what I want to be.

I’ve written about this before… a couple of times. And although it’s been nearly a year since those posts, I am in the same place. Oh, except that my one connection is gone. And my head is probably more messed up. Okay, not probably. It is.

If I knew what I wanted to be at any point before or during my college years or in the few years following, I could have done it. I could have been whatever I wanted (not like, a rock star or a movie star, but you know… within reason). I’ve always been very intelligent. Like, nerd-level intelligent. Not Dr. Sheldon Cooper, but you know, really smart. My sister D hated that I was this way without even trying. She is really smart, too, but she studied a lot. I didn’t. What a bitch I am, right?!

Of course, she always knew what she wanted to do with her life. Since she was about 14. So she’s in a great career place. And I’m nowhere. Because I still don’t know. And even if I did, it’s too late for me now.

Popular suggestions:

Further my education in a field that interests me.
I have no idea what that field would be and I cannot afford further education which is half the reason I’ve never done this.

Find a work-from-home job.
I would love to! LOVE. Love. love. Tell me where to find one… because I’ve been hunting for over two years and I have found… squat.

How about a job at a school – it might offer more time with the kids.
I’d like this, too. I could never be a teacher… and I obviously do not have that education/background. But some other school job? Sure! Sign me up! But everyone wants a job like this. They are extremely hard to come by. Unless maybe you “know someone”.

I was great at my last job. Fuck, I’ve been great at every job I’ve ever had. It’s who I am. Every manager, every boss I’ve ever had has loved me. I don’t do things half-assed. I won’t. I don’t think I can.

[Despite the wisdom of the great Homer Simpson:
“If you don’t like your job you don’t strike. You just go in every day and do it really half-assed. That’s the American way.”]

So. How does one find a job without knowing what sort of job to look for? Even if I wanted to find something similar to what I was doing pre-layoff, I don’t know what to search for. My last position was a conglomerate of different things — accounting things, payroll tax things, reporting and reconciling things, and lots more. But I am not an accountant or a financial analyst or any other professional with an actual title/career. So I search for……?

I am supposed to be doing this now. Literally now… at this moment. And any other free moment. I should be trying to find something. I should be searching for an agency, a recruiter, a job. Something.

But I fall apart. Just thinking about it is making me sick. Anxious, nauseous… head pounding, eyes leaking (yeah, that’s code for sobbing).

And I am completely useless. Incapacitated. And pathetic. I have no idea what I’m going to do… but I should already be doing it.

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