My existence is my resistance

And here's my whole new level of understanding.
*deep sigh*

I was telling a friend that I had messed up on a couple of resumes but I was justifying it by saying the law of averages means those particular resumes will go into the 'never had a chance' pile, clearing the way for my fixed resume to have a chance at these other jobs.

I tell myself things like, "I didn't really deserve the job if I'm willing to send them a botched resume."

Which is not untrue, but why am I telling myself this? Clearly, since I didn't take the time to send them information in a respectful manner, I don't deserve the job, but why do I set myself up to not deserve a job?  Was it a mistake, a slip of consciousness, or did I just really set myself up to fail?

Feeling like I don't deserve something is the answer my gut tells me.  I tell myself, well, I'll just apply for this barely-over-minimum wage job because I need to finish this task over here first.  But the truth is, I don't do better because I tell myself deep-down that I don't deserve better.

I'm getting too old to have these kinds of thoughts.  I need to get the hell over it.  I do deserve a decent wage and a decent job and self-respect.  Because I exist.

Filling out apps, pretending to be excited about each and every single position I'm applying for. Knowing full well that I'm going to be at this job for maybe 1 year or 2.  The process is tiring.  I'll be honest, I miss the temp job places.  Where they don't care about your attitude, whether you're busting at the seams to be there or not.  You just show up and they shuffle you off to some drudgery work and you get it done and money is loaded onto your card.  

I'm tired of pretending I'm more invested emotionally, physically, mentally than the owner of the company.  I'm tired of trying to find positions that match with my unique sets of skills and work experience, because nobody gives a shit unless you have specialized yourself in whatever position they have opened.

There is fear on the side of the business owner/manager because they have to invest money in hiring a person, more than they will recoup in that time.  I get the hype.  

Frankly, the hoops are tiring.  My attitude is spent.  Shitty supervisors are getting more common, or maybe I am just more wise.

Twenty years ago, people called me a rug, I let people walk all over me.  Now I'm told I have attitude. 

Yeah, I have attitude.  I got tired of the game, the bullshit, the frustration of my life. Coupled with having to do jobs that are crap.  People say find your passion and you will never work a day in your life. My passion is observation.  Light interaction.  Guess you could say my passion is merely bullshit.  Now I'm getting too old to go back and try to figure out how to make a career built on bullshit work.  

My last job, I'll be honest, I did have the balls nor the interest to do.  I felt I was doing the business owner a dis-service by being there.  Granted, the job had other issues, but quite frankly, I just don't want to put up with bullshit.  I like a certain type of bullshit.  

So, tomorrow is my born date.  I wanted to spend the day with my birthmother, but this didn't happen.   My mother and I reunited quite a few years ago.  I wanted to ask her lots of questions about it.  She's not had the chance to tell me about her experience as a mom. When I first met her, she told me about the events surrounding my taking.  I was taken from her and put up for adoption.  I was adopted in 1975, three years before the Indian Child Welfare Act, not sure when the state took me.

 My birthday is a mixed occasion for me; happy to be alive, sad about what happened to my mom.   Adoptees are handed a legacy that is taken away from us when we are picked up and placed on another path.  Altho, it's not any different than anyone else's path, really, not any more significant or less, it just is.  For native America, it's strained, I guess.  I was taken because of my mother's skin color.  'The taking.'  My mom has not been right since.  As one would expect the event devastated her.
But now, like any mom, she gets mad at me because I don't call often enough or come to visit enough.  Which makes me smile, and close my eyes, and breathe deeply the essence of being loved.   Love has no conditions, no control.  It simply is.  I didn't understand how it worked with my son until I met my mom. My mom relates to me the same way I relate to my son.

Understanding how love works helps me to understand my adopted dad.  He simply loved me and gave me his name. Which is pretty significant to give a stranger your name.  I will always be grateful for him and grateful for my heritage.  My adopted dad walked on in 1995 and it seems I miss him more now than ever.  I miss him on birthdays.  Birthdays make me think of home, perfectly frosted cakes made by my step-mom, and the smell of forest; the smell of pine; sap; wild rose bushes, the sound of Omak creek gurgling.

My birthdays generally come and go. Nothing significant happens.  I joined a small online community a couple of years ago who celebrated it today.  That was quite lovely.  That will probably be the extent of it.

 

So scared.  Not even sure why.  I fear what's going to happen, and what won't happen and most of all nothing at all.  Fear has bullied me, stymied me, tripped me, I wait for fear to take a nap so I can tiptoe over it only to find myself taking a nap instead.

It occurred to me that I like commas far too much and I place them, unnecessarily, everywhere.  Time to read Rule of Thumb again.  So many books to read this summer.

I felt bored yesterday and a bit lonely today.  When I first realized I was bored, I thought how childish of me, I have a camera and books to read, and I am fully capable of finding things to do.  As I was getting ready to take my daily walk, I realized I am over my ex-partner.  Truly over him and the grief of another lost relationship.  I know this because my brain was free to realize I wasn't crunching the grief or finding things to distract me from it. A very freeing feeling and one that makes me very happy.  I didn't come out of it unscathed, where I once had furniture (that he is now in possession of) I have weight gain, I am slower.  Our break up came in the middle of a four-year depression.  Took my legs right out from under me.  Medication, food, and isolation did not help.  Not a method to prescribe to, that's for sure.  Education and support held me.  But, I am not sure I was capable of anymore, energy-wise.  The energy simply wasn't there.  I kept eating thinking that would give me energy, but it only served to slow me down.

Sometimes, I realize things too harshly. In the aftermath and the wreckage of depression, I see again, the gentleness of the grass growing and from a distance how soft and billowy tree branches move in the breeze. Trees are ironic.  Six pelicans have been swimming in the pond.  I love watching pelicans, it's like watching something be a caricature of itself.

My legs are returning to me, along with my strength.  I forget how strong I am and sometimes when a flash of anger arises, I deal with people harsher than I realize.  Chill is typically my middle name.

I am putting off what I know I inevitably have to do. Fear.  Because once this last stretch is done, then the next chapter has to be written, and that's the scary one.  It involves rejection.  I hate rejection, I also loathe ridicule, which happens to large people a lot.  I need a plan to deal with it.  Like a song or something. And a note reminding me to breathe.  Made the note, I keep a little sketchbook by my laptop and every day I blind draw my fist, date it.  One day, I want to show my artist friend, whom I asked to teach me how to draw, and she said, this first, so I learn to see with my eyes.

I wake up each morning, wonder what the heck I'm doing this for.
There's no meaning to it.  It's just the same thing, everyday.
A scramble to meet the human efficiency quota.
    Capitalism--making sure every human has a measurable financial output.  And if not, your only escape is homelessness, or death.
                                  There is no other option.  No alternative lifestyle.  This is it.
Gotta count prison out.  It now has is its own capitalist rewards. For the prisoners and the prison system.

Money has tainted the world.  It truly is the root of all evil.  I see it now.  There are places fish no longer swim because the waters have been fished out.  We no longer have a variety of foods to eat, because the main corporations have selected a few key food crops to produce.  Streamlining productions make sense, but is not practical to the health of the world at large.

I abhor the system and yet, have to attend the university, to survive.  but due to circumstances beyond my control, I flunked a couple of semesters, and now I am on academic suspension.

I don't want to do this anymore.  This game is too harsh.  People say, no, it's easy.  But for me.... it's never been easy.  I wasn't born to easy people, nor adopted by easy people.  I didn't make adult decisions easily.  I didn't marry easy.  I did, however, divorce easily.  There is one area that is significantly easy....and that is being a mom.  Loving my son is the easiest thing I have ever done.  He warms my heart. 

The system of survival we have now, doesn't have moments of grace for the sick, the weak, or the ill.  If you have depression, well, sucks to suck. If you have cancer, sucks to suck.  If you have a lower than average i.q.....

 I can't tell you how many times I have allowed my emotions to run amok.

My anxiety over my last employment situation has caused me to procrastinate.  bleh.  I am ready to
to move on.

The older I get, the more I hate rejection.

I really really wish I wasn't just wandering around with no clue.  If I had a clue, things might be easier.  But I have no idea. It's like I'm supposed to know what I want.  And I don't know.  I want some little things, security, not to be homeless, happiness.  I thought this was a good idea, but I have no idea where to go from here.  What do I do?
So protip from a life-long wanderer;  Don't squander today.  Get help if you feel you are drowning.  The anxiety is hard.  The anxiety from exposure is even tougher to push past. Please, find someone who can hold your hand while you take the next step.  Someone will.  All it takes is one person.  Even just saying they will.
If I could imagine telling someone that a good reason to not date me, if I were dating, it would be that I have no direction. It's as if I'm just treading water, infinitely.  People pass me by, I smile, I'm nice, I help when I can.  But really, it's all going nowhere.  And for what?  I am just putting one foot in front of the other.

Royal Blood - Figure It Out [Official Video]

I have been working on this documentary for a 2 years now.  I have been working on research for the past year, inbetween working and moving and parenting, and working.  Mostly, I would just like to do research.  The college I had been attending had allowed me use of their camera equipment, and I have some footage shot.  I decided I needed to do some more research before I shot anymore.  I also need to begin a script strip before I do much more work on it.  See where I am and what else I want to do.

I certainly could use some help.  Please pray for me, pray I get the funding I need.

Thank you

aagghh.  So, I had been using Straight Talk cell phone company, I recently fired them.  The 45 $ unlimited plan from Walmart...  In May, I bought a new card, uploaded it, one week later, they shut my phone off.

 I couldn't call them to find out what happened, so I had to buy more minutes to ask them why they would shut my phone off after only one week of use.

 I uploaded new minutes, then, they gave my phone a new number.

So frustrating.

I get them called, three hours later, after much denying on their part, we finally reach an agreement.

Don't let them fool you, they keep records of all of it, each and every phone number is accounted for.  They can bring up your phones activities.  After an hour of trying to get an answer as to why they would shut my phone off, they kept telling me they had no idea, that I had probably ran out of minutes.  I said I had just bought them, only used one weeks worth.

I asked them to look on my phone record and read to me the activity.  They said, You uploaded minutes a week ago.  Then why did you shut my phone off?  We do not know, would you like to have your old phone number back?  yes, but first, I need to be reimbursed for the minutes you stole from me.  They said, we need to give you back your old phone number first, so you need to get off the phone.

They said this without ever confirming that I would be reimbursed.  It's frustrating.

I've gotten to the point of not ever wanting another cell phone.  But, with only a landline, I feel like I am strapped to staying at home because I have to stay by the phone, because the parental units don't know the password to their answering service.  ugh

That complicates my job search.

More online applications.  Oy vey.  A young woman at Labor Ready told me today that in order to be considered for placement, I needed to go online and fill out the application.  So I went to Labor Ready.com. No such application for temps.  There is for employers.  *sigh*

I had a few more ideas today for job search.   More temp services, going back into Labor Ready and getting pushy.  Altho the people in there don't look like much help, they're all of about 19.  :)  Silly kids.  I really want to know why the people at the one temp place wouldn't test me.  I suppose I need to go back in and find out.

 One of the people I talked to while I was helping on a movie set the other day, said that she got her job because her best friend's mother got her on where she worked.  My best friend's mother doesn't have a job.

I've been considering a few new cover letter ideas.  Think I will start penning those now.

Today I spent my unemployed morning, filling out, yet another online application.  This one also included a 100+ question personality assessment.  *sigh*  Filling out the app, plus assessment takes a good 2 hours on average.  And I can type.  I mean like over 50 wpm.  It's ridiculous.

I spent a good two hours on Lowe's application.  First e-mail I opened this morning, a lovely rejection from them.

What does a rejection e-mail to do the psyche first thing in the morning?

Note to self:  Read Deepak Chopra or listen to Anthony Robbins before opening e-mail.

Texans are really good at polite rejection.  Bad news is better received when delivered with a smile and a twang.  Digital rejections just don't have the personality.  Think I will go and fill out some apps in person for awhile.  Makes the rejection seem more human.  Maybe take in a workshop for the unemployed friday afternoon matinee.

Hope there is one, I need the cheap entertainment.

I may have just written the best cover letter ever.  :)  For a car dealership.

Applied to four more places on Craig's List.  This online applying can get addicting.  Time to throw the laptop out the window and time for a little human contact.

Today, was a productive job searching day.  I traveled to Plano Texas today to another workforce solutions place because they were having a job fair.  Some of us were sent away because so many had shown up.  The interviewers never made it to my name, so they sent us away, asking us to return next Thursday.

Disappointing, however, while there, connections were made.  I made a new friend from the Plano area who engaged in pleasant chatter while we waited for our interviews.

The friend who came along, agreed to get lost with me in that area of Texas, we found ourselves in other towns, looking at apartments, talking with people, sharing ideas.  So, see, in a way, it was productive.  :)  Even got a tip on who is hiring in the rental property management world.

As I was driving back home, I asked the passenger in my vehicle if they would write down the names of buildings I was shouting out, as they were potential employers and potential interviews.  Car dealerships, Halliburton, GE, other random places.  (Shouting necessary due to broken air conditioner.  All windows down as we were screaming down the interstate.)

Late last night, I finished the online application for Lowes.  Like Olive Garden and Red Lobster, I had to take a personality assessment.  This assessment is over 140 questions long.

Really?

I was filling out a different online application that asked me if I would mind carrying a gun if necessary, was there anything in my record that prevented me from packing a lethal weapon?

hmmm.

day 2 of being unemployed:


woke, showered, went to Habitat for Humanity and did some hard, sweaty, hot, volunteer work.  It was good.

Volunteer work is good for the soul, good for the environment, and keeps me happy.

Went online to check workforce website.  Found a few jobs to apply for.

An insurance claims adjuster, this employer wants me to give my soc. sec. number upfront so they can do an immediate background check.  No dinner, no flirting, they just expect us to give it up without even assuring us that this is their real, actual website for their company.

Employers don't want to be bothered with potential job seekers anymore.  They want everyone to apply online, then they will choose from the pool they receive.  Every now and then, we are lucky enough to get an application to turn in.

I can see in a crowded town, how this would ease up some time, yet, it leaves me feeling as if I'm going to left out because I don't have the right font on my resume.  I don't get a chance to schmooze the hiring manager.  Or at least make human contact.  They all want it submitted online.  These online applications can sometimes be upto 30 pages long.
Really?

When I first moved here, I thought I would apply at some restaurants, tips and all that.  Took in the filled out application, got an interview with the hiring manager who just happened to be there.  He looks at me and says, You don't have any experience as a server.  Really?

Do you have any idea how many restaurants have turned me down?  They say it's because I don't have enough experience.  Peggy seems to think it's because of I don't have the body of a college student.  Probably.


Tomorrow's plan:  Touch base with temp agencies again.  Hand in updated resume.  Find out where radio stations are and apply there.  Finish online application for state jobs.

Heard on the radio that the CIA is hiring.  hmmm  ...  going to have to check that out.

Searching, researching, revising, desperately seeking a job.  It's been a disaster, and still I must smile, have a positive attitude, and carry on as if my world isn't about to fit into a cardboard box in an alley somewhere, saved only by the good graces of my best friend's parents.  


A few months ago, as my semester at Northwest College was coming to a close, I was wondering how I was going to finish a project I had started.  How I was going to put the degree I received to good use.  I was living in Wyoming.  Looking around Wyo, Montana, Washington, wondering where and how I could begin my new career.  When, out of the blue, as I was on my way to Washington, my best friend's mom called and said, hey, if you are looking for work, you could come to Texas and search, we will have a room for you.


I thanked her, said I would keep it mind, and off I went.  A month later, I called her and said I would take her up on the offer of beginning a life in Texas, and by the way, I'm leaving two days from now.  Don't tell Misty, want to surprise her.


Scared to death, away from my security blanket of Wyo, I forged ahead, knowing that I had to leap to survive.


Enter I, into the world of Texas job search.  Nobody knows me here....  Nobody knows of my work ethic, or how I put everything I have into everything I have.  How I have balanced being a single mom, work three part-time jobs and go to school full-time, and still manage to lose 90 pounds. 


Competition here is fierce, I'm not used to not getting hired.  I started to get depressed when managers were  passing me over.  I began to drown in the unemployed-I'm-living-with-my-best-friend's-parents swirl of depression.


All my years of professional experience behind me--meaningless.  College degree--still trying to figure out a use for that one, won't get hired on my looks; this isn't Hollywood and I'm not Megan Fox.


That was how I felt in June.  Now it's July.


A lot can change in a month.  First off, my attitude.


Resumes that are done in college need to be upgraded and I graduated two years ago.  As I began to take a critical look at the job market in Texas, I realized the lingo and formatting of my resume was pretty much outdated.  A little creativity--and presto!! There was a resume revival going on in my laptop.  Music was pounding out, tongues were everywhere,  fonts were rollin' across the screen, there was even a 'fallin out' at one point.  Made it as outlandish as I could, then scaled it down from there.  


Took it into workforce, and the handsome job adviser helped me polish it off.  I suppose it could be even better.  Will have to ask him to critically look at it, but he may be tired of me pestering him.


haha


Job searching is a whole career, there are centers, support groups, workshops, and websites dedicated to this opportunity in one's life.  The chance to be as much myself as I can possibly be.  There is no holding back.  I have to finagle and fight for every interview opportunity, every application, every phone call, every resume placed in a hiring manager's hand.  No more humbly putting myself last, and being reserved and conservative.  Time to polish up and play the game.  

My resume wasn't dead, dead.  Just mostly dead.  It's cheesy, but this is where I am at, right now....


:)


btw--still dreaming big.