Empty

So far, the two blog entries I have posted have been incongruous and I would like to explain my reasoning behind starting this blog. I have such a lack of passion for just about everything in my life right now. Each day I wake up wondering how I am going to fill the hours between waking and sleeping because I have so little going on that each hour is a daunting challenge to fill. It wasn't always this way, though.


For as long as I can remember, I have filled every moment of free time with some activity, whether it was work, play, volunteering, studying, or sleeping. I used to get sick frequently because I spent most of my time pushing myself to the limit. Times have clearly changed.


My life has taken some major changes of course over the last two years resulting in me grasping at anything that may improve my outlook on life. It began with being fired from a job for reporting sexual harassment of a volunteer by a fellow employee. Being fired is difficult for anyone to handle, but as a feminist and as someone intimately connected to this organization's mission, I felt rejected and disrespected by one of the few organizations that I had looked up to and lived in awe of for years. 


Toward the end of my career at this organization, I realized I wanted to become a therapist so I could help people improve their lives. Once I was fired, I had the opportunity to apply to a Master's in Psychology program and work toward this goal. After my application was submitted, I worked obsessively to find a full-time job were I to get rejected by this program. Finding a job was not just about ensuring my financial stability; it was also a way to rekindle my confidence regarding my employability. Being fired had been a severe blow to my confidence as a good, reliable, hard worker. Despite my understanding that the state of the financial crisis at the time made finding a job extremely difficult, I took the lack of phone calls personally. Furthermore, I had only applied to jobs that would beef up my resume for my future as a therapist, so not being called back for these job openings made me fear for my future in my field of interest. 


Eventually, I learned that I was accepted into the Master's program I applied to and my fear of unemployment, for the most part, went out the window. The program was due to begin in a month and a half, so I had enough time to search for a part-time job to work while in school. The advice I was given from other students in my program was to find a job that had nothing to do with psychology so I wouldn't be burnt out. With that in mind, I applied to part-time desk jobs and within a few weeks, started as a front desk assistant at a nearby dental office.


I have been working there now for over a year, but the only difference now is that I am no longer in school. I withdrew from my Master's program after realizing it was not a good fit for me and it was not preparing me enough for my future career as a therapist. Since withdrawing, I realized that a Master's of Social Work program would be a better option for me and recently applied to a school nearby (my husband does not want to leave Seattle). I have been waiting on pins and needles to learn whether or not I have been accepted because there is little I can do to prepare for my life until after I hear from this program. I cannot apply to jobs because I do not know if I will be available for a full-time job. I cannot apply for volunteer positions, something that would allow to me express my passions, because I do not know what my availability will be. So, I am stuck in limbo, trying to find ways to fill up my afternoons and evenings after getting off of work from my dead-end part-time job.


Most people who have full-time jobs are jealous of all my free time, but I would quickly trade this lifestyle for one filled with a 40-hour-per-week job. "Why?" you ask? Because everyone I know either has a full-time job or is a full-time student, so I have very few people to spend time with in the afternoons after I get off of work. My husband works full-time and gets off work at around 3pm everyday, but I cannot rely on him to keep me occupied every evening. 


I have found things to occupy some of my time, though. I bought art supplies and a blank journal to fill up with my artwork. I take walks around Green Lake frequently, read about a book per week, and knit often. But I am a people lover, so spending all of this time alone is causing depression to creep up on me. Moreover, though I enjoy my various hobbies, none of them light me up in quite the same way as working for or speaking out about a cause I believe in. 


That is why I started this blog. I wanted to find some way to express my views about the issues I care about. Whether or not people read this (and I highly doubt anyone is), it is important for me to feel like I am doing something to make my tiny corner of the world a better place; even if that means I am merely writing about how to do so. I am not always going to write about causes, as this entry clearly demonstrates, but I will be using this blog as an outlet to share my thoughts and ideas about what I am finding most important these days. Whether I am writing about feminism,  my emotional life, or something completely different, this blog will be a way for me to create a more meaningful existence. Isn't that we are all looking for anyhow?