I Need Sleep. I Need Sleep. I Need Sleep.

I need sleep.  I find myself repeating that phrase.  I need sleep.

And it's true - I do need sleep, but at the same time, I don't want to.  I keep thinking of this week as the last week during which I can get away with going to bed late and sleeping in.  This isn't a bad thing because it will mean that I have successfully gotten the job at Pinecrest, but it does mean rearranging my sleep schedule which seems like a strange joke since my body and brain have rarely agreed on when I should been sleeping in years.  I'm one of those great people that suffers from insomnia and depression intermittently, and this makes sleep a hilarious challenge at times.  My big hope is that work will make me so tired that I will just crash.  If it doesn't work that way, I'll end up burning out quick.  It will work.  It will be fine.  I'll learn to sleep.  Or at least fake it enough that I'll be alright.

Fake it till you feel it, right?

My meeting to go over the offer for the job is Wednesday morning.  Lots of people know about this.  I probably sound goofy to a lot of them because I keep putting the "if" in front of getting hired.  I keep saying things about how "as long as" this and this and this work out...I'll have a job.  People keep saying things like "You clearly have been hired" or "As soon as I heard I knew you'd have the job" or simply congratulating me.  While this is all great and I am pretty sure I will have the job, I am struggling to feel like it is mine yet.  This isn't even a huge fancy job.  It's just a needed job, and I'm happy to do it.  I just really don't want to be completely excited about it, and then to have something fall through.  That could be overly pessimistic, but if you'd lived my life for the past couple years you'd feel this way too.

It makes me feel a little insane to be afraid of being excited.  I don't want to be in this position in my life where I don't trust life to work out even if everything points to things going smoothly, but I am.  In the past 8 years or so rejection, failure, disappointment, and unexpected things always seem to show up.  This isn't to say everything has been bad.  Sometimes the rejection has cleared a path for something better or the failure has caused change or the disappointment has helped me learn lessons, but all of these things hurt at some point.  

I guess right now I'm just incredibly wounded and incredibly vulnerable.  I'm just not willing to believe fully that this good thing, this job, will really be mine until it is completely settled.

So here I am waiting.

Siiiiiigh.

Good things come to those who wait though, right?

Favorite things of this very moment (12:44 AM CST):

• Making a new mix for a good friend
• Butch Walker singing me to sleep and telling me to "think about the good things no matter what they say"
• New yoga/sweat pants while crazy soft lining
• Having removed a certain small black & white kitten who shall remain nameless (hint: starts with "M" and ends with "ulligan") from its spot under the bed where said mini monster was apparently trying to use the bed as a scratching post
• Cookbooks with eggplant recipes I'll finally have an excuse to try since we've been given eggplant
• The box sitting next to my bed with all kinds of wonderful gifts from Nik (I swear these boxes are always like Christmas)

I've Always Relied on the Kindness of...Well...People I Know (and Occasionally Strangers)

Everything is stacked everywhere and I feel completely overwhelmed.  I have stacks of job ads.  I have stacks of framed pictures.  I have a huge stack of winter clothes I won't need for months tangled up with a pile of dresses I never take the time to wear.  I have stacks of books and stacks of movies.  I have 2 little stacks of random gifts, letters, and notes that need to go into a box so I can send them to my best friend, Nikky sometime in the not so distant future.  I have stacks of photo albums, and tonight I just feel like my life is a series of piles strewn about on my floor.

Everyone wants to help, everyone wants to ask questions, everyone wants me to come visit them soon or to go to lunch, and everyone wishes this hadn't happened.

Me too.

I keep trying to tell myself that resigning from this job that I believed was my dream job would somehow rectify what was going on.  Doing this would help me find my path back, and I still think it will, but sitting here surrounded by all this stuff that I'd honestly like to throw into the street and never see again, it's hard to believe.  (In my head I can just see all my stuff stacked on the curb as I watch out our porch windows as people come and dance with glee at their good fortune to find stacks of wonderful books and music and movies and clothes and everything as if it were that seen in Elizabethtown where Drew gets to witness just that.)

What's keeping me together is the God keeps reminding me how loved I am.  My siblings, sister-in-law, parents, uncles, aunts, cousins, and close friends keep reminding me.  People keep trying to connect me to job opportunities or volunteering as references.  People keep trying to help me get all my stuff in one place or move things for me.  People keep hugging me and telling me how glad they are to see me home.  People keep offering to injure certain offending parties.  I guess I keep trying to spread out all those beautiful kindnesses and gifts in front of me and put them on top of all the stacks.  It may seem like that would add to the mess, but really it just makes everything a little brighter and more beautiful.

Everything about this is insane, but at least there's hope.

Face Punch

We're going to skip the good things list for the moment and just get straight to the point: I am frustrated.

I have decided that if I ever own a business or am in charge of hiring people for a position, I will make sure I keep my promises. If I say I will call someone within the next 2 days, I will do so. If someone turns in an application, I will call them and let them know the position has been filled. I will call people if I've interviewed them to tell them whether or not they got the job. And I will do it as quickly as I can. After going through so many applications and interviews in the past 4 months, I am beginning to be an expert at rejection. There's a great deal of it surrounding me. I've been turned down for several jobs after interviews, and one of them just never called me at all. I guess they assumed the absence of a call was a good enough indication that I wasn't going to receive the job, but it's not really.

Just call and tell us you don't need us. It still feels lousy, but at least then we don't wait by the phone. It's almost as bad as being rejected by someone you have a crush on, and I have lots of experience in that area too.

Can I say it again? I am frustrated.

To all of you who are looking for jobs, I wish you the best of luck. I hope you find something you enjoy doing and are spared this kind of frustration.

There has to be a better way.

Let's close on a good note, my favorite's list.
Favorite things of this very moment (7:05 pm CST):

• A best friend who cares about what is going on in my life, even when I'm being a frustrated whiner
• The wonderful little blue iPod Carson gave me awhile back with the lovely matching headphones I found (surprisingly comfortable)
• Good music
• Wireless at the library
• Knowing I've already started 2 more applications (back up plans aren't such a bad thing)
• Sunsets melting into clouds
• The big fake ring that was part of the loot I got at Kayla's bachelorette party (the memories of that will give me a smile forever)

Good night.

Goodbye, Kable.

Dear Kable,

I would say, but I know this letter simply confirms our goodbye. I know you don't want me anymore and that this is the end of relationship, but I still feel I have a few things to say.

First, I'd like to thank you for the years we had together. If it wasn't for you, I wouldn't be able to type at speeds that make my friends and family twitch at times. I wouldn't be able to type numbers at all, and I wouldn't know that towns like King of Prussia or names like Szilassy exist. I also wouldn't know that there are roughly a million different spellings for the name "Ashley." And, of course, I wouldn't realize the large variety of magazines that exist in the universe. My favorite it still Window Fashions. Few things have made me happier than that magazine and all it implies.

You were also the one that helped force Zuni and I together. You inspired so many terrible mix cds, story ideas, long discussions, and overtime. You caused me to fall in love with post-it notes and to have a constant need to have hand-sanitizer nearby. Because of you, I made friends with some improbable people, listened to quite a few great audiobooks (and a pathetic one or two), fall in love with a great number of bands and begin to deeply study lyrics.

Of course, there were bad things too: the unkept promise of overtime, the crushed dream of having something steady and stable for as long as I needed, the extensive number of pornographic magazines that come through your doors, the multiple desk moves, and the never ending dust. Then of course you also forced me to share my desk with a few different temps who all thought they had a right to reorganize my desk, and then there was, of course, the stapler thief who was smart enough to return my stapler after I wrote them a carefully worded note... Sometimes the office really was like something out of "Office Space."

Kable, what I'm trying to say is, I would have gladly stayed with you forever. I enjoyed being there with you more than I can say. I always found my time with you to be satisfying, and I've been struggling with letting go. Now I've come to realize that it's too late to come to terms with this. The end had been coming for so long, and I'd been watching it creep towards me. I guess being kicked out last night just threw me off and caused me to realize that this really was happening to me.

And now I'm on my own and looking all over again. I think you really messed up this time, Kable, but that's not my call I guess. I hope, as pathetic as this may sound, that you really regret losing me as time goes on. I hope you realize that I was incredibly helpful and important to you, and mostly, I hope you struggle to move on without me. That would only make this fair.

Don't worry about me. I'm going to make it just fine. I have plans, and I'm already working to fulfill them. Maybe I'll look back on this and smile in a few years because this may be just what I needed to push me to grow into the woman I need to be. Maybe then I'll be able to thank you, but I guess only time will tell.

So this is it. Goodbye, Kable. I'll miss you.

Love,
Jaymin

Tick

Favorite things of this very moment (10:02 am CST):

• The eggnog in my coffee
• Emails from a very tall, very silly friend
• Knowing I have some great plans for today
• The anticpation of Christmas
• More importantly, the anticpation of the box from Nikky (woohoo!)
• My Christmas mix for this year (which is playing "Bless Us All" from "A Muppet Christmas Carol" right now)

For anyone unaware of this particular phenomenon: I have a tick. Up until about 3 years ago, I'd never had one. Never had a twitch of any kind unless it was the kind you had to fake while acting or when I was being sarcastic with Jeff's bad behavior. When I started working in customer service at Kable, I developed a tick. The corner of my left eye will just spasmatically start twitching. It was horrible while I was in customer service. The longer I was there the worse it was.

Well, now that I'm on the brink of being unemployed (December 18th is coming more quickly than I ever imagined it would), the tick has returned. It's stress.

In a way the tick is kind of a good thing. It points out to me that something is wrong, that I need to make some changes in my life. When I was in customer service, it alerted me that my job was not worth the frustration. Even if the pay was fantastic for me. It really wasn't very much money, but it was my first full-time job and I thought it was amazing. I actually could pay for everything I needed, and kept myself fully out of debt. It was fantastic. That I miss. That is what I am looking for.

The tick tells me that my life is in for change. That this is inevitable. That despite my reservations, I am making a leap without being able to see the other side of the gap.

I am terrified. This is also what the tick means. I am scared out of my mind, and I hate this. Not knowing, not being able to control the outcome fully. Not feeling fully stable....these things make me crazy, and the tick comes out full force in those situations.

I'll be grateful when I can locate a new job. A new form of stability until I have to make my next leap...because they're always on the horizon.

Wish me luck, and please be praying for me. Thanks.