it's so quiet.
sunday, midday. in the hour before the catholic church lets out and whips up their weekly spanish party with an ice cream truck that plays "pop goes the weasel" at breakneck speed for 30 minutes, it's incredibly quiet.
i've weathered more than two months of clamorous, frenetic thoughts hounding me every moment i'm not working or sleeping to, "find a job! find a job! find a job!" i'm at once frantic and apathetic, eager for it to be too late at night to continue working so i can finally let myself have a break. my mind is pretty frenetic anyway. it's always telling me something i should be doing (which is rarely what i am doing), but after a good cry in church--the only place i know where you can have a good, private cry in a room of people and no one thinks it's strange--i came home to a very quiet apartment building. my mind is quiet too. it feels like the movie is paused, and i can live in the stillness for a few minutes.
i haven't found a job.
so...that sucks.
in processing this, i think, "i'm glad i didn't get a cat. i'm glad i'm not a single mom." i'm thankful no one is depending on me, but i'm also sorry i don't have someone with whom to travel through this. my mom has been doing a great job long distance, and i have terrific friends, but it's difficult to need something that takes time, and very humbling, because people get tired of you needing it. most people are, on some level, repelled by need. we don't know what to do, how to encourage, when we can't see change.
often i've been asked cheerfully, "so, how's the job hunt going?" which is, 99% percent of the time, super discouraging to answer unless it's over! i wish people would just ask, "how are you doing?" what runs through my mind is, "how can you be so cheerful? this feels desperate! i am the only person in my life who can support me. i don't have parents with money to pinch hit if i run out. the money i do have saved, which isn't much, has come from careful budgeting. what if i use it all up and still haven't found a job that pays enough? what is to become of me?!" of course most people don't know all that, and it isn't really an appropriate burden for them to bear; it's mine.
one of my goals in this journey has been to sidestep the victim mentality. God has allowed me to revisit this place (it's my third visit), and each time, the stakes are higher. this place is familiar, unfortunately, but that tells me it's a place i really need to be in order to grow. i know he wants me to learn by repetition and experience that he has me. it won't be a painless journey, because our depth and compassion grow in difficulty, but he is always here.
i also remind myself, "he is above all circumstances," which for our earthbound bodies, is so difficult to believe. i can be on my last cent, and he could change everything. for me personally, with a father who chose not to be part of my life, it is exceptionally hard to believe he would do that for me. this is something it may take a long time to fully accept, but i believe it more and more. that he treasures me, that he wants to give me the best, that he will at the right time.
mentally i try to prepare for the worst: running out of money; getting evicted; having no choice but to return to colorado, live in my mom's tiny house, and take another inane food service job. i'm already going through my belongings in my head, deciding what i'd have to get rid of (all furniture but the bed) and what i would keep (yarn, clothes, dishes). i'm weary of being impermanent. i've moved 35 times in my 35 years. my things are stored in plastic drawers because they're easy to move, but i'm dying to put down roots.
this has felt like my Promised Land, the place i've been waiting my life to find. the rolling hills with gnarled oak trees, the creative and interesting people my age, the proximity to the city and the beach; it's the landscape of my heart. i came here to stay, but what if i can't make it?
