Where are they now?

It will be exactly six months since I quit my job tomorrow, Friday, August 5, 2011. Never in a million years did I think I would still be looking for a fulltime work. In the beginning I was relishing on the fact I didn't have anyone to answer to except myself and the ability to do whatever I wanted to on a whim. But now without a paycheck coming in it has taken a toll emotionally and has affected all my relationships. Even with the ones I care the most about. There is a sense of bitterness and anger, but mostly frustration of will I ever work again in the capacity I left? I look back on my career, which wasn't by any means uber successful, but one that I was privileged to have coming from a state school background with a low GPA. I feel like an episode of "Where are they now?" Trying to map out my next interview and opportunity as I did when I first came to New York in 1990, circling ads in New York Times and making an appointment with every recruiting firm I could. Back then it was easier to meet and interview without the proliferation of online resume submissions.  I'm convinced no one gets hired through that process.

Needless to say its been an humbling experience and I feel like the world is against me. Is there not one nice person left out there. Is it too much to ask for a response from a friendly email to people that I actually know? Where is the professionalism and followup, just general courtesy that I see lacking in everything and everywhere. If I can't get it from people that work in investment firms, than surely to expect in Dr.'s offices, drugstores, subways is a lost cause. Perhaps its the frustrations coming out, or maybe because I am not working, I have the time to see what's around me and make more careful observations. I hope for the future, it's just me and my frustrations coming out and that humanity is on a better course.

Writing Writing Writing

It's been exactly one week since my last post. Writing does not come so easily for me and I have to make more of an effort to do it everyday. Whether it's playing tennis or learning a new language, practice does make it better. And writing is no exception. I really admire great writers, the ability to string together ordinary words and make it come alive. To make you feel something, to stir emotions, to take you to a place you've never been. So now I'm starting to re-learn all the stuff I learned in junior high and high school about sentence structure and grammar. So many of us keep making the same writing mistakes because as adults no one corrects us. As I write this, there's probably numerous errors that would make an editor's pen run out ink. Well, maybe not yet. Anyway I want to share a paragraph written by William Zinsser of the American Scholar about writing a memoir since I'm attempting to take a crack at it. This piece inspired to tell my story even if it will take a long time, because I do have a story to tell. 
"It can also be an act of healing for you. If you make an honest transaction with your own humility and with the humanity of the people who crossed your life, no matter how much pain they caused then, readers will connect with your journey." Yes, there's that word journey again. Seems to resurface quite often. It must be a sign of good things to come!

Sources of Inspiration

There are many special people in life, and in time, each will reveal itself with a post of their very own. But for today I'm going to focus on my two special nieces, they know who they are but I'll give you a hint (O & V/C).  Over the years we have developed a bond that gets closer as we get older. And ironically the table has somewhat since they've reached adult, they are 21 and 18 respectively.  What I mean by the table has turned is that when they were younger I was the one giving the support and shoulder to lean on (or I tried to anyway), but now they are ones giving me the support and shoulder as I look to re-enter the job market after taking two years off to follow my dreams of becoming a hairstylist.  I'm in midlife career crisis.  What can I say. Back to the nieces. I am proud of them, especially in light of the adversities they face and continue to face. I know they are not the first ones to come from a broken home, but somehow when it's your own family, the heartache & sadness pulsates more strongly. But they have given me more strength then they realize and maybe its one of the reasons I chose not to have children of my own. I know that many women say being a mother changes you, and I'm here to say being an Aunt to these two special girls changed me and they continue to be a source of inspiration to what may become of me as I chart a new course in my ever changing roadmap to what I want to be when I growup.   

It's the Journey

Ever since I heard the phrase it's the journey and not the destination I knew instantly it was going to be a lifelong mantra for me. Call me a dreamer, but in life as I've learned so far, is learning to enjoy all the mundane things in life, because the fact of the matter is we spend most our existence in the daily routine (eating, sleeping, going to work) and if we are not actually doing those things we are thinking about  how to eat better, sleep more and work less. So you see, our lives are basically revolving around those three things.  Exciting moments are rare like new love, new job, new house, vacation, and maybe even getting an ipad!  The trick is learning to enjoy the daily stuff  like waiting in a grocery line (chat with the person behind you, comment on how fresh the tomoatos are today), sitting in traffic (turn the music up and sing like you are top ten american idol), waiting to use the ATM (smile at the prospect of getting good ol cash in your hands, holding for customer service (though truth be told, I have lost it in several instances with my DirecTV rep for billing errors that were not my fault).  Ok, I admit, not everyday is roses doing the routine stuff, but you can't fault a girl for trying to live for the journey.