It seems just awful to have two sorry-about-the-wait "update" posts in a row (and 20 days apart!) but this post is unfortunately going to be another mea culpa of my lack of
blog ambition.
As much as I want to keep this blog positive (seriously who wants to read post after post of whining?) a huge part of my life right now is the stress and disappointment that I'm feeling during this job search. I've had four interviews with the same company in Phoenix, none of which has resulted in a job - which, silly as it may seem, results in a pretty substantial blow to one's self-esteem.
After the latest rejection e-mail I had a mild freak-out (crying on the phone to my parents and BFF- but who doesn't do that?). I found myself questioning everything- Would I be happy with a desk job? Could I be content living in a city like Phoenix? Am I the kind of person who could start my own business? Should I do something I've never even thought of before like being a Firewoman? Would going back to school be an option?
What do I want to do with my life?
Questions like these can make a girl pretty uneasy and I started to feel a little... undone. But then a funny thing happened, my mom sent me a little consoling good night text;
For those of you without iPhones her text is the gray conversation bubble
Now, normally, I consider the standard "think of how much more fortunate you are than others" lectures are a little bit cliche (that's probably just the spoiled, American, millenial generation in me talking), but this really snapped me right out of my funk. My mom knows how much I love the
Keep Calm and Carry On poster so she just sent that as a little encouragment - but it actually got me thinking about the life I live.
*WARNING* I'm going into a mini-history lesson now, so feel free to let your eyes glaze over - most people do when I start talking history. Great Britain and the US have so much in common (duh) that I sometimes think that these two countries have had identical historical experiences - World War II being no exception. However, and this will be obvious to many of you- it just wasn't to me for some reason, although America endured many hardships during the war, it was actually
happening in England. Not only were the British losing their fathers, brothers, husbands and sons and living on rations- their cities were being bombed and their families were being ripped apart. Life was so dangerous in London due to the German bombing that children were sent to live with family or in group homes in the countryside where bombing wasn't a constant threat, while their parents stayed in the city so that life and production didn't completely come to a screeching halt.
While at the Imperial War Museum in London a year ago I read a letter, written in that messy but perfect scribble of a child. It was addressed to Mummy and Daddy and talked about the sadness that the little girl felt at having to leave her parents and how she couldn't wait until the war was over so that they could be together again. The letter was sent the day that the little girl boarded a ship that would ferry her to safety for the duration of the war. A sign underneath the hand-written letter notified the reader that the ship that the little girl was on was sunk the next day and the 100+ children on it were killed- the news of her death reached her parents even before this sweet letter did. Can you imagine the devastation those families felt? Sending children away only to lose them anyway? Or being a child and being ripped away from your parents- how terrifying that must have been? The British government created the 'Keep Calm and Carry On' poster to put up all over London to remind those prim and proper Brits that life just had to go on, despite the sorrow and fear they were experiencing on a daily basis.
I know there are a million other examples out there and I never should have forgotten it in the first place, but thinking about that poster made me realize how wonderful my life actually is. I have two jobs that aren't necessarily fulfulling but that give me the opportunity to travel and take time off and be with people I actually like, I live in a beautiful house in a beautiful town (so what if I have to wait a little while after I'm finally ready to leave it?), I have a family that I love more than words can say and friends who might as well be family. So my life isn't
exactly where I want it to be? All I have to do is live this absolutely charmed life and the rest will eventually fall in to place.
