July 16, 2021 – Predicament

Just when life starts to make sense, it throws me for a loop. The latest predicament I find myself in is my own fault though. A couple of weeks ago, I thought my unemployment was ending and then I realized that it wasn’t necessarily ending, the rules were simply changing. For the last sixteen months, I haven’t had to do an actual job search in order to collect unemployment. However, if I want to continue to receive benefits, I must now actually do something more than file a claim each week while doing nothing more than sitting on my fanny. I must now actively look for work (while sitting on my fanny). How’s that for a concept?! In my warped mind, I thought to myself, “What’s the harm in reaching out to employers about job opportunities? As long as I make the effort, I’ll still qualify for unemployment. Nobody’s even going to show interest anyway so it’s not going to matter that our house is on the market and we’ll probably move soon.” Haha! My husband warned me. He said, “What are you going to do if someone actually offers you a job?”

Now, before I get ahead of myself, I must let you know that I haven’t been offered a job…yet. What I was offered was a job opportunity. Of the three required ’employee contacts’ I made this week, one of them actually has two office positions coming open. The lady in human resources who reached out to me said that I would need to fill out an application in order to qualify, to which I replied that I’d complete it and return it to her shortly. Right after I hit ‘send’, I wondered what I had gotten myself into. Smoke started to come out of my ears after my neurons misfired multiple times. “Wait a second,” my brain chimed in, “I thought you were moving. Isn’t that why you put your house on the market and your husband quit his job and you’ve sold or given away a bunch of stuff that you said you either didn’t need or want?” “Yes, but!” I tried to explain, “The house hasn’t sold yet and I’m starting to doubt it ever will and, more importantly, I never expected any of the employers I contacted to have a job opening.”

Yes, it appears I’ve gotten myself into a real pickle. As much as I had convinced myself I didn’t want to work again, the idea of having a job and rejoining the ‘land of the living’ does have some appeal. I’ve felt so lost over the past year and I’ve really struggled with trying to determine my purpose since my previous place of employment closed and my job dried up due to the pandemic. The position that is available is as a full-time office manager and I will admit that even though I feel I’m qualified, I have some real concerns about working full-time because I haven’t done so in over 5 1/2 years. Not only that, it’s a position that involves working 4 ’10s’ (four ten-hour days). Apart from when I was much younger, when I served in the military, I’ve never worked a 10-hour workday. Five ‘8s’? Yes. Four ’10s’? No. Believe me, I recognize how fortunate I’ve been because I know many people don’t have that option, but I’m not sure that I’d even be capable of staying awake and alert that long. I’m to the point where an afternoon nap has become rather necessary.

The worst part of this predicament is that I’m really beginning to question whether moving is the right thing to do (more than I already was). I started to play the ‘fate’ card today. I like to ‘play’ this game because it removes the requirement that I make a conscious, deliberate decision about something. “As I see it,” I explained to my husband, “If we’re meant to move, we’ll get an offer/contract on the house no later than the end of August. If we’re meant to stay, I’ll get this job.” It sounded logical at first and then I continued to think about it. “What if?” I then thought, “What if I get offered the job and I accept it and then we get an offer on the house? What then?!” Oh, crap, that’s what!! ‘Fate’ couldn’t be that cruel, could it? Oh, yes! ‘Fate’ can be that cruel! Have you watched the news lately? ‘Fate’ dishes out whatever it sees fit. You might be one of the lucky few who win a million dollars in the vaccine lottery, but more than likely you’ll end up like the rest of us who get to spin the wheel in the ‘test your faith’ sweepstakes. Of the choices available, a few are ‘lose your job’, ‘lose your home’, and ‘lose your sanity’.

About six months after I lost my job, I started this blog as a means to retain what little sanity I had left. Prior to that, I spent hours on end ‘organizing’ all kinds of stuff in my house. On one particular day, I organized pens, pencils, markers, and crayons. I started out by going through every single dresser and cabinet and drawer, and removing all of the writing instruments I located. I then placed them on the kitchen table. After separating out each by category (putting ‘like’ with ‘like’), I then proceeded to test every single item to make sure it worked. What didn’t work went into the garbage. The rest? The first batch I tackled were the pencils. I first separated the ‘regular’ pencils from the ‘colored’ pencils and then I proceeded to sharpen each and every one. I kept a few and the rest were donated. The crayons were next. Whichever ones were whittled down to nubs got tossed and the rest were put into a large container and donated. The pens and markers were given the same ‘treatment’. When I got through with all of the writing instruments, I went through all of my jewelry as well as all of our cables and cords.

There are more items I organized but I cannot remember them off the top of my head at the moment. Needless to say, when I completed that set of tasks, I moved onto digitizing all of my old home movies as well as going through every compact disc I owned and matching the CDs with the cases/covers. Once every VHS tape had been digitized and every CD placed in its rightful case/cover, I filled my days by learning Spanish using the Rosetta Stone program. I then started the blog. And for a while, I had the blog and the Spanish going at the same time. Eventually, it all became too much and the Spanish went by the wayside. I still remember a few words and phrases but not many, which is a shame. What I didn’t manage to get around to were all of the house-related projects that I couldn’t fathom working on. I’d look around the house and once I tallied up everything that needed to be done, I’d get overwhelmed and come up with something else to do (that wasn’t as physically draining). If I had to choose between watching a movie and painting the pony wall and all of the window and door trim in my bedroom, hands down, watching a movie would win out.

Honestly, can you blame me? And, yes, I successfully postponed touching any of the house-related projects until only recently (when we decided to put our house on the market). The thing is, now they’re all pretty much done. Aside from filling the nail holes and touching up the baseboards with paint, I cannot think of anything more that I need to do. I never thought this day would come! So, now what? Here I sit, it is officially ‘day 20’ and our house hasn’t had a single offer. Despite our daily mantra that ‘our house is going to sell’ (which we didn’t do today because it doesn’t seem to be working), and everything we’ve done to increase our home’s ‘appeal’, nobody seems to be interested in purchasing it. The multiple heatwaves, the 4th of July weekend, and the massive wildfire probably haven’t helped matters, but still! What’s it going to take? I don’t like being in this weird headspace of not knowing. The last thing I want to hear when I ask a question is, “I don’t know.” Ack! I loathe those three words! I demand answers! The longer I sit in this state of ‘not knowing’, the closer I get to becoming a permanent resident on the funny farm. I don’t mind ‘funny’ or ‘farm’ but not when you put them together.

My patience is wearing thin so something needs to happen, and soon! I suppose I’ll go ahead and put in for that job and if they offer it to me, I can let them know that I do currently have my house on the market but intend to pull the listing if it doesn’t sell in the next six weeks. I want to be transparent about my intentions and not mislead people. What would make this whole situation so much easier is if someone were to make an offer on our house this weekend and we accepted it. There would be no more ‘unknowns’ about whether we’re staying or going. I would have my answer. Of course, that’s not to say that there won’t be plenty more arising as a result of the move. The question I ponder the most is where we are going to live. Initially, we plan to live with my father-in-law but that’s only temporary. We thought the housing market was better where we intend to move to but the ongoing ‘bidding wars’ are pricing the houses (we thought we could afford) well beyond our reach. I just don’t know anymore. Anyway, I keep drifting off and reading the back of my eyelids so I’d better sign off for the night. Thanks for listening…and I hope when this weekend is over, I’ll have good news.

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