21:
“I don’t want you to be unhappy.”
…
Looking back, you now realize you spent the first year of it dreaming and the second year living. Your hair was red, then brown, then yellow, then pink. You changed it around to figure yourself out. Then you changed yourself to figure him out.
After a year, the people in your life started to fade like old photographs. He had moved away by then, and took your focus with him. Now you had to go too.
And who could blame you? This is it, you thought to yourself then. This is why.
You packed your car and said goodbyes. This is so much love, you swelled.
…
Years later, a different boy in your bed, you casually mention the days you lived in the desert.
“Why did you move out there?” he wants to know.
For a boy, you say.
19:
him: “I tend to like things sauce-y. Pasta, stir-fry, steaks…”
me: “wenches.”
him: “…”
Dammit.
28:
“…and he’s only 29!”
“You should date him.”
…
I can’t find a job for the life of me, though lately, I have not been looking. I scrape by on the very little income I make each month, budgeting the hell out of my wallet and going to museums only when admission is free.
Initially, not having a full-time job felt like a gaping hole in my personal identity and I filled every one of my unemployed days searching uninspired listings and sending out uninspired cover letters. I eventually found a match with a part-time job to throw into the pile of my other part-time jobs and have been unsteadily riding the poor wave since.
To be fair, I really enjoy my part-times and if I could somehow transition just one them into a full-time, this girl would be all set for glory and future-planning. Unfortunately, as we’re all painfully aware, that won’t happen or happen anytime soon.
And yet, despite HR directors and headhunters being wildly unimpressed with my modest attributes, friends and acquaintances are all about trying to get me to meet their single friends. I’ve somehow located the secret passageway to meeting men and have unwittingly snuggled in rather comfortably. Want to introduce me? Sure why not. Think we should hang out sometime? Give me a call.
Though, like a job, I am not really looking (wait, is that where in my appeal lies?). I’ve gotten involved in a local free clinic, signed up for a volunteer health care excursion, ran a half-marathon, put my friends and family first, read the books I wanted to read. With all the downer recession news stories, no one told me that life can be fucking awesome not having a full-time gig. My time is my own! I do what I want! Maintaining a good credit score, psh, for suckers.
What I’m saying is, I’m still busy despite being without. And I’ve gotten used to the luxury of taking actions that interest and challenge me and help me grow.
What if a job or a man throws a wrench in all of that? I can stay with bad jobs much too long and love bad men much too deeply. It’s just who I am.
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