It’s hard to know what I am doing in my life at this point in time. I feel as though I am trying my best, but how can I really know? I spend most of my days applying to jobs, but I don’t really have anything to show for it. I can show someone the list of applications that I have sent out because Indeed.com saves that. I can show the variations of coverletters that I keep saved because coming up with a new one for every application is not only exhausting, but quite impossible. It begins to feel quite helpless. It is hard not to feel worthless. Not to mention the detached nature of the whole process. I spend my days throwing applications into a void, hoping that someone reads it, hoping they see my humanity shine through, hoping they sense my earnestness and ignore my desperation. I wish that there was a more active way to go about this. If I could walk into a building, and demand that someone see me. If I could just force someone to consider me: my ability, my progress, my possibility. If I didn’t spend most of my time lying on my parent’s couch, scrolling through open positions, then maybe I could really be convinced that I’m trying.
Then, maybe my mother could be convinced too. Maybe then she wouldn’t inform me regularly that I need a job, or ask me: Do you think that you’re trying hard enough? Because I can’t show her how much my unemployment truly terrorizes me. I can’t allow her to see me check my email five times an hour, because then she’ll worry. I can’t open up myself to reveal the raw flesh being constantly accosted by my own inadequacies. I cannot allow her to see me fail. So I must let her think that I am lazy, believe that the reason for my unemployment is sloth.
And, maybe I am being lazy. Maybe there are other ways to going at this that I just haven’t tried. Maybe there are doors to knock on, and people to speak to. Maybe I rely too heavily on a hope for the future, when I should invest in a reality that is feasible. I should take the office sales job that fills me with dread because it is the gateway to a paycheck. I should go to a meeting for that finance group where I can get a certificate to sell insurance, and peddle a thing that I don’t believe in. How much longer can I blame my youth for my resistance to giving up on my dreams before I face the reality that I am presented with?
Semi-Employed 