Wednesday began to be a day of no computer or phone intrigue. I began to need that space from this one dimensional world in order to bring peace to my mind. It started as I began...always beginning...to feel that looking for a job was much like waiting at the opening of a train tunnel. I was waiting there looking down the long passage and waiting. I knew that the train would be coming and that the engine light would slowly fill up the tunnel as the the train came nearer and nearer to me. My mistake. No train came. Yet I still waited with an open heart and mind, stoking my own engine-the one that is with me when I wake each day-with belief in myself and my skills and my place in the world. And so the train still hasn't come. I have stepped back from the opening, still thinking it will arrive one day and I will pull myself up by the worn, brass railing and onto the landing between the engine and the first passenger compartment.
For now, I am beside the tunnel, in the shade with an iced tea. Yes, I still stoke my own engine and this is how I came to it. I take Wednesday off from the pursuit. I needed that early on to feel like I was taking back the power that employers seem to snatch up and toss away in some abandoned parking lot where all those online resumes seem to go. They scatter around in the open lot like fodder for some wind ghost who heartily cackles as the hopeful wait by their phones for the "call."
I came to feel that if I did get an interview and spent my day preparing and driving to the appointment, waiting for them to come fetch me from the front of the store or the office to which I applied, giving them my pitch with my enthusiastic, genuine, bright and hopeful self, they asked the same five questions. I could almost count on it. Their faces gave nothing away as I grew anxious trying to make a connection with them. With some people, I may have thought I had a chance and then nothing. No call and no email to tell me that I was not chosen. Nothing. This has happened over and over and over again.
And so I came to take a day off from all of that calloused energy. I start with walking the dogs. Then I shower and go to the gym where I swim in the pool. If Ms. M. is there already, gracefully swimming her laps, then I know all is well with the world. She is a regular and her vibe gets people to choose other lanes. She is a fixture and a strong, confident woman swimmer. She is one of my heroes. I watch her with awe as I attempt to do two 50s without stopping. For me, the sapphire water, like a gem in my thoughts, becomes a place of beauty and safety. I have been here when it was hailing or raining and cold and swam laps regardless. It is my release from a world that tries to tell me that I no longer matter. The water has saved me from my own dark thoughts and restores the balance in my life. I feel buoyant and revitalized. Reborn but not like it sounds.
Some Wednesdays, I don't answer the phone either. That helps to release that focus on the phone that applying for jobs does to the human brain. It feels cruel to look to the phone for an answer but there it is for us. So, if you are trying to find me you will need to call multiple times and you may not get me then anyway. Whether we apply for jobs or not, the same thing seems to happen. We are people just like me. I graduated with honors and have an exemplary work history full of success and service but I cannot get a job mopping floors at the local grocery store. Hmmmmmmm. What do you call that?
Wednesday is here and off to go swimming!
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