Single

This has been quite a Fall. First I lost my love. Then, about a week later, I lost my job. I think the love thing is harder. I'd rather have someone to sleep with every night than a job. Sex and affection and true companionship are all way better than health benefits. I've tried "dating" on-line but my heart isn't in it. And most women on dating sites are just so pathetic. Everyone is happy and well adjusted and smiles a lot and lives life to the fullest and thinks everyday is a glorious sunrise with limitless possibilities and is independent and successful and loves puppies, hiking, and lattes.

I met one woman. For lattes. She wasn't as thin in real life as she looked in her photos. She wore a bulky sweater in a lame attempt to cover-up this important fact but I'm a good judge of body types. You can't hide bulk. It heaves with every breath. I don't feel the urge to call her again. She's just not that great. Not anything like what I had. Not even close. I haven't been into settling since my marriage so why start now?

Some days I feel like going back (to the girl I met on a flight from Phoenix to Denver and then spent the next year-and-a-half with) and saying, "Look, I'll do anything. What will it take? What do you want me to do? Be? Say?" Maybe that sounds desperate. I'm not desperate. I just want her back. At nearly any price. Maybe that is desperate. Maybe I would rather be alone the rest of my life than be without her. Maybe I spend too much time idealizing our relationship. Why do I do that? Why can't I just be jaded and move on? Problem is, when I fall in love (which has happened exactly twice in my life - and no, the first time wasn't the person I married) I fall hard and it takes me forever to get over it. This one could take a very long time.

Unemployed

This has been a tough one. I've never been "downsized" before and it's been more than three months since I lost my job. I really don't now how to look for work. I've had a few positions over the years but they always had a way of finding me. I didn't go looking for them. I think the last time I really did a job search was when I came out of graduate school. That was nineteen years ago.

Looking for work has changed so much. I was completely unaware that you can't talk to anyone, you do everything through the web. You send your resume which then gets scanned along with the hundreds of other resumes. Then the search system on the other side looks for key words which of course you don't know what they are. If your resume has enough of the key words you get a second look, if not, you don't hear from a soul. I've probably made five to six hundred job inquiries since September. I've had exactly two interviews. One of them over the phone.

Beyond the technical frustration of this job search the psychological toll is getting worse. I've forgotten who I am. I'm not sleeping well. I have to try really, really hard to feel optimistic. I have this little glimmer of hope that things will get better. That I'll find another position that takes care of me and my kids and that maybe someday I can finally get out from under the debt and financial turmoil from my divorce and maybe even be able to buy a place of my own again. Maybe be able to buy a car that has less than 100,000 miles and that doesn't break down all the time. Maybe, just maybe.

It's gotten so bad that I pulled my profile off of Facebook. I decided that Facebook is for people who have lives. When I get one again maybe I'll reactivate.

The bottom line is... this is bad. I feel bad most of the time. I feel like a failure and I feel like a fool for believing that good things would happen to me if I worked hard. Maybe they will sometime in the future. Maybe things will get better. I just don't know. I know I'm not the only one who has lost a job recently. It just feels that way.