This morning I awoke feeling sorry for myself. I went to bed in the same mood. I am stuck on this emotional rollercoaster ride that elevates me to great heights and then plunges me into utter despair. It has everything to do with job hunting. There is no hope. Of this, I am convinced. Everyone around me likes to give me that half-hearted pep talk about time and patience and the eventual payoff, but they are not the ones watching their education and six years of experience fall by the wayside. It’s hard to develop confidence when each week’s end brings another round of disappointments.
That is where my mind was focused as I laid in bed this morning staring at the ceiling. I was having trouble finding the motivation to get up. What did I have to look forward to? Washing the dishes? Sweeping the floor? Checking the mail? Even a nice long shower, which I am always up for, seemed too pointless a task. So I laid there with the covers pulled up to my chin like a little girl frightened of the demons under her bed.
Then, as it always does, my mind drifted to the reality of the situation: I had to snap out of this funk. It is easy to feel sorry for yourself when you are alone, but it makes things much worse when you are not. Inevitably, Eric always shoulders the weight of my darks moods as I shoulder the weight of his. When my foul mood makes Eric’s mood foul it makes my mood all the fouler. I think that is known as a vicious cycle.
So I took a shower, dressed, and headed out the door. My mission: breakfast. As much as I loathe admitting it, food is an effective therapy at times. Plus, I was sure that getting away from the house for a bit would help. Without a second thought, I aimed my head and heart in the direction of one of my favorite cafes in San Diego and never looked back.
I settled into a tiny table in the darkest corner of the restaurant, ordered a coffee and a water, and smiled as the waitress complimented my meal choice. Then I cracked open the new novel my book club choose for our February meeting and buried my nose in its pages. I did not expect to enjoy the book. I was pleasantly surprise to find that it actually disappointed me to have to put it down as the waitress set my food on the table. After I cleaned my plate, I continued to read and drink coffee until my hands were visibly shaking from the excess caffeine. I left when the thought of another sip of java made my stomach grumble in protest.
From there, I walked around the city for a few hours taking note of all the places and things I wanted to photograph for the upcoming Photo Night. I laughed at an old lady’s t-shirt that read “Old Guys Rule” and contained a funny “old guy” cartoon with wrinkles, a high waistline, glasses, and a cane. I rolled my eyes at the sign a homeless man was holding which read, “Why lie? I need a beer.” I widen my eyes at the sight of a disheveled black man pacing the sidewalk shouting, “Afraid to love! Afraid to love! Everyone is afraid to love!” There is never a dull moment in downtown San Diego.
Before heading back to the condo, I stopped by our post office box to pick up the mail. When I slid the heavy brass draw open the first thing to catch my eye was a large envelop from the Pacific College of Oriental Medicine. Last week, I ordered a catalog after I browsed the college’s website. As soon as I got home, I torn into the envelope and read the catalog cover to cover. And, for the first time in a long time, I had an epiphany. A moment of clarity, if you will.
See, California was supposed to be my clean slate. My do-over. Prior to leaving Maryland, I had reached my wits end when it came to my career. I was disgusted with the path I had chosen. More so, I was embarrassed to be a part of it. My line of work in the ambulance chasing-rainmaking-plaintiff personal injury field was sucking me dry of such characteristics as compassion, empathy, and charity. Worse, I was using the “a steady paycheck” excuse as a mean to justify the fact that every other day I was involved in a task that compromised my ethics. I couldn’t bare it anymore so I resolved to remove myself from the problem and become a part of the solution.
That is why California was so appealing to me. I decided that I wanted to go back to school and obtain an education in Traditional Chinese Medicine. I wanted to help people heal. I wanted to help people find themselves… spiritually, physically, and mentally. As a workers’ compensation paralegal, I saw my clients suffer at the hands of their physicians who wanted nothing more than to pump their patients full of painkillers, collect their big fat checks at the end of a four-hour day, and rush off to vacation in Italy for a month while their patients spiraled into the deepest levels of chemical dependency. Then, when they returned from their happy vacations to find their patients addicted to the pain medications prescribed in copious amounts by their own hand, they would refuse to treat the individual further (citing chemical dependency) and left the patient to face the pain of withdraw on their own.
I was done with that world. My days of keeping my mouth shut were over. I was determined to give back what I so haphazardly took. But, somewhere along the way, I lost sight of that purpose. Selfish desires clouded my judgment. So, I began obsessively throwing myself at a world I vowed to leave behind forever. Maybe that is the simple answer to my trivial problem. Maybe my inability to find a job in San Diego’s legal community is the Universe’s way of reminding why I came here in the first place: to change.
California is my clean slate. I think it is now time to embrace that.
