before i start, lemme just tell you where i’m heading, all right? all right. first of all, i’m typing in lower-case. that’s when you know i’m about to get real. second of all, you know how some people only blog when they’re angry and need to vent? i’m beginning to realize i only blog when i’m sad. so there you go. there is your warning. it’s christmas and my immediate family is all under one roof and relatively healthy, and yet i need a good whine. 

where to begin. i hate to sound like another self-pitying student, wallowing in the supposed ‘failure’ to secure a job offer months before graduation, but here i am. no matter how many times a day i try to remind myself of how good i have it and how i’ve really got a whole nine fucking months left in my master’s program so i should just chill the fuck out, i can’t shake it.

there’s just this cloud of…gloom, that just sits over everything. and it’s all i can think about. i can’t even fully enjoy the good things in front of me—the holidays, being home, spending time with my family, catching up with old friends—because there’s this constant unsettling feeling in the pit of my stomach. there’s this stupid tiny little voice in my head, which sounds a lot like my actual stupid tiny little voice, that keeps reminding me of how i slogged through this recruiting season and still came up short. no job, no security, no daydreams. just a big question mark.

i guess i keep coming back to it because without knowing what i’ll be doing, i can’t answer any of the questions that drive me crazy, the questions that i think about constantly when i’m in the shower or on the bus or walking down the street, the questions i can’t turn off in my head: where will i be next year? what will my job be like? will i have enough free time to get to relish my new paycheck? will i make enough money to pay back my ridiculous grad school loan? will i live close enough to my parents to look after them? will i make enough money to fly back to look after my parents? will i have friends wherever i am? how am i going to make friends? will the boyf and i have to go long-distance again? what does that mean for us?

but more than anything, this not-having-a-job-offer gets me down because it keeps reminding me of how much i’ve fucked up. after applying to all of the firms that came to campus, even all the ones that i didn’t really like at all, i came back with one, single first-round? that’s it — one? for a small firm that barely anyone’s heard of? and even THAT firm didn’t want me in the end?

i’ve run the numbers over and over again in my head, the odds of securing one of 3 spots out of a sea of 1500 applicants to that one small firm alone…and i’ve reminded myself of all of the external reasons for why this didn’t go the way i planned. over and over, i’ve tried to make myself feel better. but i can’t stop feeling like i’ve screwed up, in so many ways, in so many small steps along the way. i’ve always been told that i’m my own worst critic, but i think that’s because i’m the only one who knows exactly how often i fuck up. if i could go through the process again, i would change so many things. it’s one thing to feel like you did your best and got screwed, but it’s another when you can easily list out more than a dozen little things you could’ve fixed to tilt the scales just ever so slightly in your favor. 

so there it is. there’s this cloud that hangs over everything i do. there’s this tightness in my chest that happens every time i think about it. it doesn’t hurt me in any tangible, dramatic way. it doesn’t stop me from stubbornly applying to every job that sort of, kind of fits my profile. it doesn’t stop me from telling everyone, with a smile, that yeah, it’s hard, but i’m not going to let it get me down, and that i believe the right thing will come along someday.

but it makes me sad. it makes me sad all the time. and i wish it would just go away.