Low level anxiety/worry sucks. Everyone worries from time to time. They say you can feel it in your gut, but I’m not sure that’s where it resides – at least not entirely. There is a sinking feeling, maybe in the gut, but there’s also a nagging at the back and front of the head. I can feel it expressed as a mental and physical sigh, a slightly clenched jaw, an odd welling up from various places. As good as I felt this morning, watching the hours tick away this afternoon without a phone call pushing me through to the last round of interviews has taken me down a peg or six. I know it doesn’t mean that I’m out of the running, but my gut says they’re going in a different direction.
People don’t like to deliver bad news. People avoid conflict. People hedge their bets. People get quiet when things aren’t great. This is just human nature. Whenever I didn’t do my homework, I tried to shrink myself small or avoid eye contact or in college, just skip the class. When I worked as a consultant, I knew about a month before the relationship ended that my contract would probably be terminated – all of the meetings I normally would have sat in on took place without me. When I couldn’t reach my girlfriend while she was away on her internship, it was because she was with someone else. When my ex-fiancee didn’t text to say she was on her way home, I knew something was up – she left that night. Silence in the dating world is usually followed by an end of some sort. I’ve witnessed the cutting off of employees in the corporate world – they are slowly pushed to the edges and given less and less information and responsibility. This isn’t a capital T truth, it’s just my observation of human nature. I interviewed on Tuesday. Until now, they’ve been very responsive in moving me along to the next steps – this feels like a break from that pattern. My gut tells me I won’t be doing any more research on housing in the Seattle area. Of course, I hope I’m wrong.
There are those who believe that we will in to existence the good or bad things that happen in our lives. I certainly think my worry the day my fiancee left was a contributing factor. If you’ve ever had a big argument, you’ve probably recognized, after the fact, that you were itching to argue before the first words were said. All arguments begin in silence. I wasn’t itching for an argument, but we were both anxious about something – it was in the air. That day, she was at an appointment that was supposed to end at 3pm. With each passing minute, I felt a little more uneasy. I kept saying, something isn’t right. Maybe the appointment ran long. When 4 approached, I knew something was wrong. This (not hearing about the job) is a little different. There is no argument. But I can feel myself bracing for the disappointment. I feel myself wanting to make the passive aggressive preemptive blow – the one that forces their hand. It’s as if I want to spare myself the blow and withdraw before they can reject me. I won’t act on it. And I’m not one to say after the fact, I didn’t want the job anyway. I’m not a fan of revising history like that. But, the anticipation sucks.
The other thing that isn’t helping is the state of affairs in this country. We have a President who is dismantling a core service of this country, the post office. He is using his platform to belittle his political opponents, he is again spreading birther misinformation. Many of the things he is doing are blatantly in violation of his oath of office and the laws that govern our country. You are not allowed to use a tax-payer funded press conference for campaigning. He doesn’t seem to care. I’m not sure I’ve ever disliked a person more than him. I’m not sure I’ve ever been more embarrassed of this country. I’m starting to take it personally because I’m waiting on things through the mail like determination letters on unemployment. It pisses me off that he’s screwing with millions of people because he doesn’t like the post office and is afraid of mail in votes. It’s not right, and nobody seems to be stopping him.
I don’t like writing these types of blog posts. When I do, things, events, emotions have a tendency to get mixed up. One feeling of impending disappointment triggers past feelings of loss and disappointment. The sensation of feeling helpless and as though I have no control – over job or democracy or the economy just triggers other times that I had no control.
I’m gonna let go for now – go for a walk, clear my head. There seems to be a nice breeze here tonight, and I have new music to enjoy.
And within minutes of leaving, a woman I’ve been talking to and was supposed to have a virtual zoom date with tonight texted to say she’s not feeling great, another time? This just seems to be how the evening and weekend is going to go.