A Future That Will Never Be

I'll add a picture when I'm back on a computer and not with winging it with a Kindle Fire and a prayer.

I wrote earlier about how I wasn't hired for the much better and more interesting position of Programming Librarian at my library.  It sucks.  It really does.  But them's the breaks.  It's fine.  Not only have I gotten used to rejection over the years, but I was expecting it.  I've said before that I'm not well liked at my library, and it's true.  And it's not that they (my bosses and suchlike) don't like me for personality reasons or because I either don't do my work or do it poorly.  No, I'm just overlooked most of the time. 

That's fine too, the overlooking of Amber.  I don't need anyone to hold my hand or pat my head and tell me what a good girl I am.  I enjoy working without supervision.  I like creating and completing my own projects, making my own rules.  The lack of acknowledgments can be irksome, but I'm terrible at selling myself and I know that, so I've come to terms.  That's one of the reasons why I've not been able to find a job.  It bugs me but I'm not that willing to change.  I hate to admit this, but I don't want it enough.

Don't get me wrong, I'd be excellent at it.  Passionate, driven, energetic, creative.  I like projects and that position would be nothing but projects.  We're renovating a new building and the new site has a huge, park-like side yard.  It also has a ton of meeting space and study rooms and the like.  AND a great maker space, complete with a recording studio.

I have this dream of a series of interconnected, intergenerational, and interdepartmental programs spanning years.  Programs that cement the library as a hub of the community, bring in money in the form of grants and fundraisers and maybe even advertisements, though we'd have to be careful with that last one because the library is not a place to sell things – the services should be kept free. 

My dream included a monthly or semimonthly podcast examining the people and the history of the community; library publishes books of short stories, biographies, poetry, etc by our patrons (and done for our programs); a community garden and seed library; plays staged in our park in the summertime possibly in conjunction with the high schools and colleges around town; we could have a farm animal programs and get people to bring their horses and the smaller, more petting zoo appropriate animals; we could do a story corps type thing where people record interviews with their loved ones; we could have a wall of art by local artists for sale and for display.  We could do a thousand thousand things that I have up in my brain, but we can't.  At least, we can't do my things, because I didn't get the job and I'm not going to do anymore programming, not after this spring and I've finished with the programming I already said I'd do.

It's not petty, or not entirely.  It's more a matter of labor and being paid for it.  I'm part time, hourly and doing a ton of work off books for the library with the planning, preparations, and implementation of these programs.  I don't work enough hours to have enough time to do this at work, at least not and still do what I was hired to do.  Needs must, and I'm very against any unpaid labor.  I am worth something, you know?  I deserve to be paid for my labor.  Even if I sometimes give it away for free because I'm excited about something or I'm trying something out, or I think it'll pay off in the long run.

Now, it's not worth it for me.  Now, I'll just focus on doing my job really, really well and managing my money and some of my own projects that with a little skill and a lot of luck will afford me a living.  The big thing is, these projects will be mine and no one else's.

I know I've been down on my luck lately, what with not being able to find a job, but I think that may be because I've been following other people's plans for me.  I never wanted any of this.  I'm chasing a dream that was never mine because other people convinced me that mine was impossible.  Shit, I'm done listening to other people.  The boring future of the really good, but completely unfulfilled librarian died as it was born.  I'm going to try to live for me and my dreams for myself.  Maybe then I'll actually be living rather than being stuck in this fucking limbo like I have for the past 15 years.

Farewell to the future that never will be from a girl who never was.

Hollow

By Oleg Alexandrov [CC BY-SA 4.0], via Wikimedia Commons

I pulled a Tarot card today and it was The Tower.  Not a very good sign, right?  The Tower has actually been coming up again and again in my readings for myself.  I've got this Tarot app on my kindle and it comes up there too.  It seems to be a theme in my life right now.  I'd say it's probably been a theme for a couple of years now, actually.

Generally, The Tower represents sudden, catastrophic, and unwelcome change.  It is a card of destruction, yes?  And a card of warning.  Yet, my life is so horribly the same.  Always.  For years now.  There is no change.  There has been no change.  My efforts to force change have come to naught.  My life is is stagnant, foul and rotting.  What the rot touches, it destroys, and it has touched everything.  Over the last several years, I've watched as everything in my life has been eaten away.  Nothing has been spared: not a hope, not a dream.  Everything withers and falls away.

Today I got the "you're not good enough to hire for this position" call from my workplace.  I was up for a recently opened full time position—one in which I would have been brilliant.  I interviewed and was rejected.  The rejection wasn't a surprise.  After six years of being searching for a full time job, I go into interviews (when I get them) fully expecting to be rejected for the job.  I mean, the hope is there, but I'm no longer surprised by the rejection.  Though this particular rejection was truly unsurprising because yesterday my boss asked me to cover a shift at the of December.  She wouldn't have done that if I'd gotten the job.  Deductive reasoning.

The Tower, representing catastrophe, has been my constant companion for years and years now.  So long now that catastrophe, though still traumatic, is no longer sudden for me.  It's no longer unexpected.  Everything I touch, everything I care about, everything I hope for shrinks from me.  It's like it knows that my touch is toxic and will cause it to rot and wither.  I had hoped–not having a lover, not having a husband or children, nor the prospect of such–that I could have a satisfying career.  I do not have a satisfying career.  It's been six–almost seven–years and I do not have even the beginnings of a satisfying career.  I no longer believe that is going to happen for me.  I don't think it's meant to be.  At least not in the library.

Perhaps I am not meant to have a job.  But then how will I survive?  Right now, with the meager wages I bring in from my part time job, I have to be supported by my parents.  Without them I can't afford food or shelter.  Even with them I can't afford myself. 

I now owe $58000 in student loans.  It keeps going up.  I'm on an income based repayment plan and can only afford the $30/month I pay them now.  If I had to pay the entire amount I wouldn't have money for gas.  I clear maybe $1000/month.  Maybe.  Of that, $300 goes to car payments, $300 goes to paying off my credit card, $100 goes to car insurance, $100 goes to health/dental insurance, $50 to gas so I can get to work, and the remaining goes to miscellaneous expenses such as food, phone, the occasional hang out with one of the few friends I have left, car maintenance, or any one of a thousand incidentals.  No wonder I have panic attacks.

I made a grave error when I went to graduate school.  It's one I can't fix, one I have to live with, but how?  How?

I have to figure that out.  I have to find a way to make money outside of a regular job.  I have some tentative plans for next year.  Plans I sorely need to flesh out and put in action.  It's a gamble, what I have in mind.  A huge gamble.  High risk, and a maybe okay reward—the likelihood of a high reward is so low as to be nonexistent.  I am afraid.  I am so afraid.  I can't afford to fail.  I am literally gambling with my life.  Like, if this doesn't pay out, I don't see myself surviving.  Not for very long, anyway.

Gods!  It sounds dramatic, but I don't mean it as such.  I'm just . . . operating without a safety net, and my plans–tentative as they are–require cutting my last lifeline.  If I don't learn to fly before hitting the ground, well, SPLAT.

Tell Your Story, Man

The Adults (my great grandparents): Joseph and Sopia.  The children: Sophie, Katherine "Kitty", Anna, Mary, Barbara, Zora, Daniel (my grandfather), Mildred, Josephine, and Frances "Vinny."  Not featured: Elizabeth "Betty" who was not yet born.  Based on my estimated age of the eldest daughter, Sophie, who was born in 1904, I think this photo was taken in 1920 or thereabouts.

For the most part I find people to be interesting.  For the most part.  I think everyone has a story to tell about themselves and their lives.  This is the type of history that I enjoy: the history of people, the personal, the relatable.  The stories of my family.  The stories of your family.  Stories.

In that vein, I'm developing a memoir writing program at my library.  The program will run every Tuesday night in October, with four weeks of writing and storytelling assistance, and one final week of filming one of the stories the participants have written.  I'm pretty excited about it, and I really, really hope this program is successful because I'd like to see it expanded.  I have dreams of creating a regular podcast or web series around the program, and running the classes through much of the year.

Oh!  And can you imagine a book?  I can.  I think it would be nifty.

My program planning is mostly finished.  The only things left for me to do are the final touches: creating handouts, working out which of the myriad of topics we'll focus on, and figuring out how to use the freaking green screen at the library.  I'm working mostly from Lois Daniel's How to Write Your Own Life Story, and incredibly helpful book on memoir writing, which I love.  And I'm having a really great time figuring out the how of this, going over some of my old writing assignments from yesteryear, remembering the styles and encouragements of my teachers, mentors, and professors.  I'd forgotten, I think, how much I enjoy the business of writing—I love it more than anything.

Which brings me to myself and my writing.  I have really been sadly neglecting this hard-won skill.  I mean, yeah, I have a natural talent for language use and storytelling, but that gets me nowhere if I don't actually work at it, and I used to work at it.  Now, I'm in a state of atrophy, but I'm not so far gone.  I just have to remember, and remember to work.  So I guess that's what I'm going to do.

At one point I wanted to make writing my career, and you know what?  I still do.  It's time for me to actually start seriously pursuing that career.  No excuses.  What does that mean for this blog?  Not sure.  Because I want to actually sell what I'm writing, I'll not be posting it here.  Most publishers want first rights, you know?  But I will post some stuff (and maybe more often), and I'll try to keep you apprised of what's happening.  The two people I know who actually read this blog sometimes complain that I don't update it enough, so I suppose that has to change.  (I don't know how my suspicious number of French readers feel about anything, I just know that I'm getting an oddly large number of hits from France.)

So that's my plan.  I'll keep you posted on my library program and my writing progress and whatever else I feel like blogging about (because, really, this blog's about me).  Below is my list of possible memoir topics, and, um, I'll let you know as I figure more out.

Oh! And I almost forgot: I'm still looking for a new job.  As much as I now enjoy the library, it still isn't the place for me.  I've got no room to grow.  And I'd really like to have relatively normal hours—and full time hours with all the benefits that come with those (medical, dental, retirement).  So, if I find a job before October?  I'll take it.  I plan on leaving enough notes that one of my coworkers can step in.  Or, if I can swing it—and this is my preference—I'll still teach this October class after my regular workday.  It'd be nice if the library will still pay my regular hourly wage for it, but I'm not expecting that.  If I have another job to pay the bills, I can volunteer.

On to the list!

Possible memoir topics include:

• Birth
• Childhood
• Parents & Grandparents
• Accomplishments
• Where were you (significant historical events)
• Religion
• Relatives
• Romance
• Turning Points
• Children
• Technology
• Holidays
• Politics
• Pets and Animals
• Traditions
• Immigration
• Memorable Moments
• Places
• Failures
• Jobs
• Creative Arts (how music, theater, dance, movies, paintings, etc) affect your life
• Hobbies
• Wars
• Fashion
• Teachers (in school and out of it)
• Food
• Lessons (that you learned or that you have to teach)
• Natural Disasters
• Et cetera, et cetera

Conundrum

I'm wondering whether or not to apply for a job, and I just don't know.  I've got about a week and a half before it closes, so I have to decide quick.

The Pros:

It's in my field.  It's full time.  It's in the same town as my best friend.

The Cons:

Crappy pay.  It's not a professional position.  Semi-crappy hours.  The town is about  3-4 hours away from my family and support system in a town where I only know 3 people (my best friend, her husband, and their kid).  A quick google search of rents in the area revealed that I'd be paying about as much as I would here if I had my own place, and I wouldn't even try to find a place of my own for that pay here—it being about half or more of my monthly take-home.

If it paid better I would jump at it.

If it were in my town I would jump at it.

However, it's pretty damn far away from my current support system.  I'd have to find a place to live, pay rent, utilities, continue to pay for my car (loan payment, gas, upkeep, etc), buy food, and pay for other various expenses (my credit card, clothes, my phone, internet, etc).  A lot of that is stuff I don't have to worry about now.  Add to that, the small raise in my pay may end up requiring me to pay more towards my student loans, and I don't know that I'd actually be able to live.  

On the other hand, it's in the town where my best friend lives and we haven't lived in the same town in years.  

This is so frustrating because the job could be perfect.  It's not too far away from my family.  It's in my field.  It's full time.  With benefits!  But it's not enough.  I need more money, and I don't want to have to work two jobs to survive.  

But I'd be near my best friend and I miss her so much.

I don't think I'll apply.  In the process of writing this I talked myself out of it.  If it paid more—but it doesn't.  I'll just have to keep looking.

GGAAAAHHHH!

I really need to do this:

This post is to remind me of something to do that will both benefit the library and look good on a resume for a future (maybe local) full time library job.

I want to put together a list, a pathfinder, or even a website like my Gothic literature website compiling every author I can find who has a connection to my area.  I don't know how far out I want to go with this, whether, for instance, I want just authors from the Kansas City metropolitan area or all authors from Kansas and Missouri.  Nor do I know whether I want to list authors who were born here (or around here) but were raised (and/or lived) somewhere else, or vice versa.  I'm leaning towards an all-encompassing list incorporating Kansas and Missouri in their entirety.

Things to include:

• biography
• bibliography
• links to author site
• links to free reads (if any available)
• links to library systems in the states? maybe
• links to booksellers

Any other ideas out there?

Moving Forward, Staying Still

First off, I want to say thank you to all my friends and family for your support in the wake of last weeks post.  I'm so very glad that I have people who care about me in my life, however peripheral.  That said, please, please stop sending me suicide prevention hotline numbers.  I assure you that I'm not suicidal.  I'm just massively unhappy with the path my life is currently on.  That doesn't mean I want to die.

My mother, she with a psychology degree, says that depression is just anger turned inwards.  I get that.  It makes sense to me.  Since I fluctuate between raging at the world and at myself, it makes sense to me.  It's just that I don't know how to fix this: my life.  I don't know how to find success and happiness.  I can't seem to do anything but fail, and it makes me bitter.  How do you get a job?  Or even a job interview?  I'm closing in on 700 resumes sent or applications filled and have only gotten two interviews.  I try, but no one is interested in giving me a chance.

I've applied for jobs that I'm perfectly qualified for - jobs that seemed like they were made just for me - and nothing.  I've applied for jobs that I'm overqualified for, and nothing.  I've applied for jobs that I'm under-qualified, and, of course, nothing.  There are only so many ways I can change my resume.  So many times it can be rewritten.  I keep trying and I keep failing.  Again and again and again and again.  I don't know what to do.  I don't know what else to do.  Is there something in me that's lacking?  Something other people can see, but I can't?

What do I have to do to get a full time job?

I'm not sure that I believe that it will ever happen.  And then what do I have?  Nothing.  Useless degrees and many thousands of dollars of student debt.  I can't afford a life.  

I'm so ready for this summer to be over.  Autumn needs to come and bring with it crisp air and cool rains to wash away the mess the summer has left in it's wake.

I don't know what I'm going to do with my life.  I need some kind of plan, some structure.  I thought the library would give that to me.  I could make my career, find my place . . . The truth is, I've been questioning that assumption all along.  For all that I would be a fantastic librarian, for all that I spent tens of thousands of dollars getting a degree that would allow me to move up in the field (provided anyone gave me a chance to get out there), for all that I've invested my time and energy and spent my spirit, I've questioned . . . From the beginning I've questioned if this was the right path for me. 

I want it to be.  I would love to work in a library in a librarian position, as a professional, as an integral part of my community.  And I love libraries, I do, but I don't fit.  I don't know why, but I don't.  I wish I did.  It would be so much easier, but when, of late, has anything been easy?

The thing is: what else can I do?  What. Else. Can. I. Do?  What else can I do?

That's the crux of my problem: I don't know.  I don't know what to do.  I don't know what else I can do?  I just know I can't stay here.  Stagnant.  I've got to move forward with my life, and I don't know how.  I need to find a job, and I don't know how.

I suppose I'll have to figure it out, because I can't stay here.  I can't.

It should be an interesting journey.

Drama. Heartache. I'm so done.

Sometimes I wish I could just burn my life to the ground and scatter the ashes to the winds.  Or cut ties, walk away from everything, begin again.  No sick and helpless father (though he's out of the hospital now and still has both feet/legs!).  No massive student debt ($48,000+).  No crappy infighting and bullying at the library.  No annoying underemployment.  No frantic, fruitless job hunt.  I could be/find something novel, something new.  I could find my place without the weight of everything dragging me down.

I imagine myself as a of the hero in one of the fantasy novels I love so much: wanderer, poet, mage, bard, adventurer, lover, dreamer, warrior, witch, princess, thief.  Brave and strong and smart.  Wild and wily.  Have you ever noticed that they don't need funds?  That they can walk away from or stab their enemies?  Have you noticed how everything works out for them - these heroes of my faery tales?  Somehow, everything works out.  It must, otherwise it wouldn't be a good story.

Life isn't a story.  It sure as hell isn't a faery tale.  And I'm not sure that anything's going to work out for me.

I'm so tired of bad luck.  I'm so tired of failure.  I'm so tired of thinking I'm moving forward only to find myself further back than when I started.  I'm tired of not being told what I'm supposed to do at work, then getting in trouble when I don't do it.  And I'm tired of platitudes, and "it gets better"s, and false reassurance, and "at least you don't live in (whatever 3rd world hellhole is fashionable at the moment)"s.  I'm tired of "it could be worse."  I know it could be worse, but it's pretty damn bad now.

I almost walked out of the library tonight.  That's one of two things I've never done at any of my jobs: I've never quit without giving at least a months notice and I've never been fired.  But I was ready to walk out, go home, and never return.  My boss actually talked me out of it.  She was right when she pointed out that it would damage my future career.  It would, but I'm not really sure I have a future career to damage.  I have a couple of meaningless, expensive pieces of paper that ideally should make me employable, but haven't seemed to help me at all.  I have a constant headache and tears in my eyes every single night, but especially when I leave the library lately.  I have a brain that replays the bad parts of my day, my life, over and over and over again keeping me from getting to sleep until I pass out by way of pure exhaustion.  I have a desire to cut myself, something that is so fucking cliche and upsetting to me, something I haven't done in over a decade.  I have an almost pathological fear of going to work, and the beginnings of a need to avoid libraries from now until the end of time.

Which sucks because I truly love libraries.  And for the most part I love my job.  I LOVE helping people find books, answering questions, doing research.  I love thinking up programming ideas and learning about new trends and conceptualizing my ideal library.  I love making pathfinders and study aids.  There is a comfort for me in libraries, but it's slipping away because of stupid internal politics and a fucking bully of a supervisor.

And I hate it.  I hate that I hate going to work now.  I hate that I feel underutilized and unappreciated. It just compounds, you know?  It just keeps getting worse.  I'm so stressed and upset and it seems like nothing is going my way.  Nothing IS going my way.  All my family drama is stacked on top of my professional failures is stacked on top of my general depressed person depression, and that twisted layer cake is topped with this new work bullshit.  Something's gotta give.  I just can't do it anymore.  I'm having nightmares, night terrors, again.  I woke myself up screaming and tearing into my arms the other night with my fingernails.  I can't do this anymore.  I feel sick inside.  Rotted.

Knowing that I'm not the most stable, mentally, at the moment, and not in the best frame of mind to make decisions, I'm going to give it a couple of weeks - until the end of the month.  Then I'm probably going to quit my job.  I hope that something comes up before that.  That somehow, miraculously, one of the many, many, many places to which I've applied gives me chance.  It would be better that way, easier.  With my luck, though . . . 

I wish I could just walk away from it all.  Disappear.  Go on some grand and magical adventure, and return home triumphant, if I return home at all.  Life's not that neat though.  It's messy and awful and painful.  There is no "better."  There is only the same or worse.  Or at least that's the way it's been for me for my life.  And I know from trying that there's no way for me to change it.  I endure.

The point of no return

I interviewed for and didn't get another library job the other day.  It's frustrating and stupid that I can't find a full time job in a library.  I'll keep applying, but more and more I'm feeling like the entire search is futile.  I wonder if anyone anywhere will be willing to give me a chance.  It wouldn't be so bad if I didn't desperately need a job.  With a decent pay check and medical insurance.  I think that here soon I'm going to start applying for jobs outside of libraries, though I don't know that that will be much better.  I don't have much in the way of marketable skills outside of books and organization.

And the thing is, I really, really want to work in a library.  Specifically a public library.  If I get a full time job outside the library I'll never have a chance to go back.  Not without starting completely over: first, as a volunteer; then, a part time employee.  And I don't think I'll ever be able to afford that.

Not unless I get married and my husband can support me, and that's probably never going to happen.  Truth?  I don't think I'll ever get married.  I may never date or have sex again, let alone make a lifetime romantic connection.

I have to be able to support myself, especially because I expect to forever be alone.

And that's okay.  I can be alone.  I can't say that I'll enjoy it always or even be 100 percent happy, but I'll be content.  It's better than being miserable because of another person.  Except, I worry that I'll never be able to support myself.  

And I'm worth so much more than my current jobs.  I should be able to support myself.

I feel like I've given up so much already.  I'm beginning to accept that I'll never find love.  I'll never have a partner in life or children, and that's beginning to be okay with me.  Sad, but okay.  I don't need that, not really.  I can find other things to do with my time.  And that's huge, don't you think?  I don't want to give up the library.  I don't want to give up on being a librarian.  It's too much.  It's everything.

But something's got to give.  And being a librarian is the last thing I have.  If something doesn't come up on that front soon, then I'll have to give up that dream as well.

And then what?  Then, what?

I don't know.  I don't know what else there is for me out there.  I'll be traveling blind and ignorant.  I don't like that thought, but I'll soon have no other choice.

I think I'm going to give it through the end of the year.  That's, to my mind, pushing it, but I really want this to work out for me.  After the year's end, if I still don't have a job . . .  I don't know.  I guess we'll see.  But that will be when my final dream dies.