I can’t believe I’m writing right now. I actually didn’t think I would write this soon, but I felt like it, so I am. Everything is gray right now, summer is bleeding out the last of its sunlight and the skies are starting to turn. I’m not really that despondent about the change in seasons. Sometimes it’s nice, I get more introverted and more focused, more productive. Winter seems to buttress a deeper self awareness, one that is difficult to evade and necessary to meet.
I kept thinking about my job search. I’ve been thinking about it for months now. I had a call with a friend the other day. “We’ll get you focused soon Amber.” I feel thankful for community and the support it provides. It’s liberating to be able to vent about the strange surfaces of the realities that cross my path. Life is a series of quiet storms that roll in and they’re best managed with good company.
The job search has been a tough one though. I don’t think it would have been this difficult if things with the federal agent hadn’t unraveled the way that they did. After that experience I spent two years in a quiet depression, shuttling between work and home, trying to suture my wounds and unwrap the glass buried under my skin. I passively study dating and I remember a coach talking about the relationships that protect our internal worlds. That was such an interesting way to look at the experience, that he ruptured a reality I had spent so many years reassembling.
My current boss is so relaxed and emotionally intelligent. He’s on the cusp of retiring and is essentially in a space where he doesn’t give a fuck about anything. That kind of energy cushions reality. While my personal life was burning down from the federal agent’s antics, my work life stayed calm and emotionally balanced. I didn’t burn the candle from both ends, and returned home functional enough to reinvest small slivers of energy into healing.
It’s not the job search I hate, it’s the thought of uprooting myself into another environment. I don’t want to deal with whatever comes my way under a new set of fluorescent lights. I want things to always be calm, predictable, and safe. I don’t know what I’m opening my door to. I feel overwhelmed navigating the job market, the corporate world, trying figure out where I fit in. I think in some ways the whole situation with him was a blessing. I’m underplaying my ability to navigate uncharted waters.
a soft death 