I'm in a weird place right now. I'm still unemployed, working casually on small freelance pieces and slowly chipping away at the book but fixating an unhealthy amount of attention on a job that I applied for in April and haven't heard back about. At the same time, I'm seizing the day so hard and finding everything that I want outside of work, everything that prompted us to move here, the recreation and community and culture.
When the job posting popped up I lost my mind with excitement; it felt like the description was written with me in mind. They had to hire me. Who else could possibly fit the bill? But as the weeks have stretched on, with only a few perfunctory back-and-forths in which I try to hide my enthusiasm and neediness, I've lost the confidence and certainty that this is my job.
My family is blue collar stretching back generations, at this point very financially comfortable but still a little dismissive of work that isn't manual labor. Although they were completely excited about and supportive of my journalism career, I've always been sheepish because, as my parents liked to remind me, they never had paid holidays or company email addresses or jobs that could be stolen away by AI. Now that my generational wealth has enabled me to take a long and ever-lengthening sabbatical, I feel extra queasy about work and my lack thereof. I'm paranoid that my peers think I'm rich and lazy and privileged, and I worry that even Cy is getting sick of my unproductive days spent around the house. But it's more like I'm frozen in place, looking constantly at job postings but never applying for any besides the first one because that is the job that I want so badly that I can't even consider an alternative until I get a definitive answer.
The reason I say this is the best possible limbo, however, is that in the meantime we are absolutely living life to its fullest. We've crammed several years of local experiences into less than two heady months. Sailing, a sunset ski tour, farmers' markets, pond skims, the Ski to Sea race, the Whatcom World Cup, the Washington Endurance Series, Bellingham Idol, a trip to British Columbia, a baseball game, poke bowls on the beach, drag shows, a Green Day cover band, cliff jumping, runs on urban pathways, errands by bike, adventurous gravel rides, scary bike trails, dig days (with women!), group rides (with women!), jump sessioning (with women!), a queer ride, a downtown naked ride, breweries, Russian dumplings at night, free yoga on the bay, and showing our friends the decadent life.
Even though constantly checking my inbox for a follow-up email is a bit frustrating, I'm going to try and maintain this momentum for as long as it's sustainable.
Friday update: After weeks on tenterhooks I finally heard back that the company is postponing the candidate search but will reevaluate in a month or so and I remain in the game if interested. It's closure, sort of! This week I also received a possible offer of copy-editing work from another publication so I am feeling way less dour than I was when I wrote this blog.
