"Where do you see yourself in 5 years?" "That's a good question..."

I am unemployed. It’s not fun. I’ve been home for about a month now, and I’m starting to get bored. At first, it was like vacation. “No more pencils, no more books! No more teachers’ dirty looks!” But now I need to find a job or I will go crazy. I need purpose. I mean, I’ve started to exercise and play the piano more, and that gives me something to do each day. But they’re kind of pointless seeing as how I’d really rather gain weight to fit my clothes again and get my curves back and the piano doesn’t even hold the same magic it once did. I need something to stimulate my mind and not make me feel like I’m wasting my life, or as Friend with Special Place puts it, being an “oxygen thief.” (I would like to put “I feel like an oxygen thief” as my facebook status, but that will garner a lot of “what’s wrong?” questions. It sounds rather suicidal, which I’m not by any stretch of the imagination, so I’ll just leave that alone.) You would think I’d use this time to get back to where I used to be with God, but I believe Howard Dude is getting in the way. Which probably means I need to get rid of him. The thing about him is that he’s been through the same thing I’m going through right now, so it’s nice to have him there because he understands. We’re compatible on so many levels. All my friends who’ve seen us together think we’re great together and ask me why we aren’t dating. But being with him means that I will probably eventually compromise my morals (again) and I feel that the closer I get to God, the further I’ll get away from him. This sounds like a no-brainer: get rid of the dude who you’re not even in a real relationship with to be with the God of the universe who’s waiting to be there with you and for you. But a part of me wonders if I can have both. I know our relationship is going to change, but do I have to cut him off completely? It feels like we’re in an actual relationship, which I haven’t had since high school. I like the notion that someone who doesn’t have to care about me or spend time with me wants to care about me and be with me. He misses me. He likes my body. He likes me, and I feel like I have a piece of his heart (I don’t want all of it because I wouldn’t know how to handle it anyway). I also feel like he needs me in some way. I’m not entirely sure if this is true, but it seems as if he’s opening up to me more and more and is beginning to consider me part of his go-to circle when he wants to vent.

I tell myself that when I get a job everything will right itself and I will not be tempted to compromise myself in any way. But who’s to say this is true? Why is a job the be-all and end-all? Probably because ever since I was little, I wanted the amazing job that paid for the amazing apartment and let me lead my amazing social life. I always pictured myself as together: Sex and the City without the sex part (although the sex has been creeping into my goal. See, compromised morals). To achieve this image would mean that I’ve accomplished my life’s goal, which should make me feel fulfilled. So theoretically, fulfillment is only a job away. The problem is that this goal is shallow and short-sighted. I don’t have real details of how I’m going to achieve this fabulous life. When they ask me in interviews what I want my life to be like in 5 years, I make something up on the spot. It would seem that I should face reality and make new life goals that have more substance and detail. But I don’t think I can do that because I feel like my first job will set me on my life path. In other words, I have no real idea what I want to do with my life and I’m just looking for a job to give me some kind of direction.

This is no way to live.

I'm sprung

I think I'm pms'ing. I like this dude way too much. Like so much, it almost hurts. The 'I want to talk to him RIGHT NOW and if I don't I'm gonna go crazy' type of way. I want him here with me. Is he good for me? Eh, jury's still out. But my friends love him, he makes me laugh, and he's affectionate in a way that I've always wanted from a dude. There's a lot I could say about him, but right now, I kind of just want to revel in this feeling. It's been a while since I've felt this, and especially when it seems to be at least halfway mutual. Ah, mi vida.

A week left

All of my professors decided to have everything due at the same time. I have two papers due Wednesday, one Friday, and some project stuff that I completely forgot about due next week. It was way more squished together than that, but I got some stuff moved around. I have a lot to do, but I don't know where to start, and when I do start, I get writers block and my thoughts get even more scrambled than when I first sat down. I can't even look at all the facebook statuses like, "I'm done..FOREVER!!" Thanks for reminding me that I still have a week to go. Hopefully my GPA won't completely tank..

For the record..

When I get a prophetic word spoken over me, I like to write down the day, and even the time it was said so that I can look back and read it to remind me when I inevitably forget what God said. For some reason, I didn't do this last week, so here it is before I forget:

Saturday, April 10, 2010, at 8:49 p.m., my dad called me and said God put it in his spirit that He has a job for me, and that I will like it.

You have no idea (or maybe you do) how that made me feel. Earlier that day, my mom called me to say that I'd gotten a letter from the place where I'd had an interview weeks ago. Letters are never good, and I knew that if I'd gotten the job, they would've called me, but I still had some hope that maybe I was wrong. I wasn't. Even though I knew it was coming (they told me they'd have an answer in 3 weeks, it'd been 6), it still hurt and I cried like a baby on the phone while not trying to let my parents know I was crying. I really wanted that job. Like really. There was a small part of me that somehow wasn't too keen on the job, but the rest of me wanted it sooo bad. Hearing that I didn't get it was a dagger. I mean, how many rejections can a person take? My Plans A, B, and C failed. Plan A's, yea, you hope they come through, but it's not exactly certain, so you make a plan B. That's why people have Plan B colleges they apply to, so they know they have somewhere to go. Rarely do you ever hear about Plan B falling through, and who talks about Plan C's? So I was walking around with a heavy heart. Most of the day I was fine, but then at some point everyday I was having little panic attacks and mini-breakdowns because I have no idea what I'm doing after graduation, and when I saw a way up, inevitably I seemed to crash back down. Those times, my future looked...blank. That's a scary thought.

So that word was timely for me. Everything that my dad has told me is coming from the Lord has come, which is one reason why I hadn't had a full breakdown yet. He'd told me over the summer that God was planning on doing great things with me. So if I had this word, why was I so distraught over a simple little job that I probably won't keep for that long? I don't know. I guess I looked at it as something that was far off, that eventually I'd get there, but the steps to it were hazy and dim. To use a cliche, I couldn't see the forest for the trees. I've been keeping scriptures like Jer 29 in my heart: "I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope." I'd begun to actually believe this when my dad gave me this word a week ago. The panic attacks had started to come less frequently, but the bad news about the job set me back like 2 weeks. Once, I tried to write about my fear of being a failure, but something in my spirit checked me. Confirmation is a good thing. So now that I know what's happening, I have more peace now. There's some part of me that's still a little anxious, hoping it's going to come before I graduate. But since it's coming, I'll keep the word close to me, and work on completely getting rid of the anxiety.

Can you really call it trusting in God if you're constantly worrying?

Dear Applicant

Dear Applicant,

Thank you for your interest in this position, but QuietQueen, Inc. is no longer accepting applications for a muse, sidepiece, fling, or any other superficial and superfluous position. We also would normally tell you to check back in a few months when QuietQueen is hurting, feeling vulnerable, or just all around feeling depressed and wanting attention and entertainment, but we don't anticipate that someone of your pedigree will be able to fulfill those needs in a satisfactory manner as QuietQueen is currently growing and maturing.

Wishing you the best in your future endeavors,

HR

Transitional phase

This is the phase that no one talks about in speeches and biographies. And if they do, it’s often romanticized, and by the end of the book, it’s a distant memory while basking in the glory of your accomplishments, after you’ve “arrived.”

This is the phase when the things that happened in the past don’t matter as much anymore because you need something good to happen in the here and now.

This is the phase when you see glimmers of light and pray that you didn’t misread the signs, that the light at the end of the tunnel isn’t an oncoming train about to crush you.

This is the phase when I remember why I don’t write anything during phases like these, why there are big gaps in my diary. I don’t really want to remember this feeling and relive the pain. I know it will hurt a little to read a few months/years from now, whether because it was as bad as I thought it was, or because in the big scheme of things it was trivial and realizing that I wasted time worrying about it when I could’ve been doing other productive things.

I blame my parents…

Since I’ve gotten out of the house, I can see why my parents did a lot of the things they did, and I appreciate it much more now. The only thing that still bothers me a lot is the music thing. Since I was only allowed to listen to gospel, and even then, there were some gospel artists they still didn’t like, my repertoire of music is relatively small. I don’t know any of the so-called “classic” music – those songs and albums that every black person knows, or should know by the invisible Council of American Negroes. So now that I’m basically grown, people talk to me and expect me to know these things, but I’m like, um, yea, uber-sheltered kid here. I used to get a pity look and a sympathetic nod, but now it’s just a major side-eye or an incredulous “What?! You don’t know about ____??!!” So I just shrug; what can you say? I mean, you can’t catch up on 18+ years of music in 4 years at school. You can catch up on a lot, but you’ll never get to where the people are who’ve been listening to the stuff for a while. There’s a whole nostalgia thing attached to the song that I will never be able to get.

*reading over*

This sounds…real whiny, like the-other-kids-are-doing-it-so-why-can’t-I type thing. Or like a Christian that wants so hard to be like everybody else, and not be different. Even now, there’s a lot that I don’t even try to listen to cause I don’t feel like the possibility of being exposed to something that’s gonna mess me up. I know there is good non-gospel out there, but you have to wade through so much junk to get to it, I don’t know if it’s worth it. I guess I’m at the point where I’m leaning toward ignorance of what’s out there; in this case, ignorance is bliss.