Being Me…

Things are about to change.  We have decided to sell the townhouse and move back “home” - back to where the majority of our families are.  We’ll then have help with the kids, help getting  back on our feet, help and support in any number of ways.  It feels good, it feels like the right decision even if it is a little sad.

I’m going to miss my townhouse, the rooms that I’ve gotten just the way I want them.  I’m going to miss my yard, even though I never arranged it the way I wanted.  I’m going to miss my neighborhood with its nice paths and playgrounds and lake.  I’m going to miss the convenience of everything around me.

It will be ok, though.  We’re finally taking steps in the right direction and moving on with our lives.

I have, in the past, depended on a certain major newspaper’s job section for local jobs. I found the site more helpful, easier to use and more user-friendly, than some of the major job search websites. I recently restarted my job search and I did so first by going to the paper’s website and getting my resume uploaded, formatted properly, and also creating two cover letters. It took a while to do all that and I believe that it was last week; I posted an entry about it but I don’t feel like looking for it at the moment. (Edit: I went back and looked - it was Wednesday, September 19.)

Anyway, this morning I went to continue my search, figuring that there should be some new jobs posted from the weekend. Well. My password wouldn’t work; I went through the process of changing it to discover the reason WHY it didn’t work. The paper apparently decided to contract out the job search portion of the online site; it is now one of the major search sites - and it is SO MUCH WORSE. Many of the helpful features are gone. But it gets better. All the work I did last week, getting everything set up (including search agents)? Gone. All the notes on things I’d applied for previously? Gone. Aaargh! Yeah, that makes my job search simpler; I had stopped using this particular major job search site on a previous job search because I found them so full of spam and so unhelpful. When I tried this this morning, I found pages and pages and pages of “Work from home; make $72,000″ ads. Yeah, that’s helpful. 1 page of related jobs to my search, and 5 of spam/garbage.

Well, I’m going to find another arena to look in; I could go back to the paper and do this the old fashioned way, but it is so much faster online! And I don’t want to give the paper the business now. There have to be good sites out there; I’m already using one that is OK. This whole thing just irritates me; the paper has my email; would a little notice that this change was going to happen have hurt?

I started my job search today. It made me more depressed - and I didn’t think that was possible. I suppose my family will be happy - at least something is happening; the thought of going back to the “career” I left just makes me feel worse, though. Well, as everyone keeps telling me, you’ve got to do what you have to do.

I’m trying to keep in mind that nothing is forever. I don’t have to stay at the next job forever. We just need something to get us through our current situation. Besides, you never know - I could find something that interests me, something with a good environment. I was just so relieved to leave my career behind when I was laid off the last time. I was a secretary/administrative assistant for roughly 16 years through various companies. I was fine at what I did, but I found any number of companies that view secretaries as office furniture. Frankly, I got very tired of that and it showed toward the end. I wonder if I can go back and really do a good job. I’m sure I can, but I wonder if I can get past the ads. I’ve been looking at job ads for two weeks now and I keep finding myself thinking, “Well, I COULD do that … but why would I?” That kind of attitude is going to keep me from applying for jobs, let alone interviewing for one!

I decided today that I may as well take the plunge and apply. I submitted my resume for four that sound tolerable. And of course, it could take a while to even get a response to any of my resumes so I’m probably worrying for nothing. I know that I need to get interview clothes but I’m going to hold off until there is an actual interview to worry about.

Maybe this will get my family off my back. I certainly hope so; I don’t really want to talk to anyone right now.

My biggest concern is how this will affect my children. My youngest is 3 months old and I had hoped to continue to nurse her and to be home with her as much as I could with college. Of course, life is full of surprises and changes and sometimes you have to just go with the flow, but … this is a disappointment to me. I know that if I end up putting her on formula/bottles she will be fine; I know that, really. But I really want to give her the best start I can. This is one of those reasons I really get frustrated by my family interfering and poking at me, even though I know they mean well. I’m worrying about things other than the job situation and I don’t think that they are thinking of those things. Oh well. We’ll see where this goes. It may go nowhere, if no one wants to hire me after a 3 year absence from the job market.

I can do this. And I can do it cheerfully, to help us out of this situation. I can go back to office work and do a great job. I just have to set my mind to it and accept the current situation for what it is, not what I wish it was.