Disclaimer: The following blog contains less than encouraging or uplifting news, perspective or information. In fact, in many ways it is my substitute for the personal pity party that I can't afford to throw myself right now (though I may indulge in a pint of ice cream by myself inside the car that I don't actually own later this week).
I want to confess that even as I start this blog I begin with the faint hope that someday I will come back and read it and think "Oh Amanda, why are you so pessimistic? Don't you realize that your life isn't really that difficult? That sometimes things really do work out?" But as I stated, those hopes are faint, like the water color painting of a first-grader who didn't dry her brush between colors and spent more time dipping in the cup of murky water than the paints themselves.
Hope, faith, trust - they've never been my strengths. There may have been a time when I believed that "all things work for good," that "everything happens for a reason," or that "someday it will be your [as in my] turn for good fortune," but that was a while ago. A long while ago. I know people whose lives "work out," who marry the first person they date, live with the same great roommate for six years, find super cheap rent on housing and get job offers handed to them from people they don't even know. I know people who find full-time jobs after looking for less than 2 weeks, win back stage passes to top notch concerts, receive free meals when the go to restaurants and are offered experiences overseas that require little more than filling out an application. I'm just not one of those people.
I'm more often than not a person who gets stuck with "deer in the headlights" syndrome because I'm never quite sure what to do or what I want. This usually results in putting off a decision until the last possible moment - the moment in which I think I finally know what it is that I want. But then after I've made the decision, I realize that I really should have chosen otherwise. Dinner entrees, clothing selections, flight dates, movie seats, ice cream flavours - I never seem to make the best choice. I've learned how to cope with my bad decision making. I have all kinds of justifications that make feel better about what happened. "It was character forming," I tell myself. "I'll know better next time." "It broadened my horizons." "I learned something about myself." Sometimes I even believe these things.
The most recent decision I made was to accept a position as a Youth Intern and come to Kansas City for the summer. Prior to that point I had spent 6 months unexpectedly living with my parents in Lincoln, NE, working in a bakery, desperately applying for employment and failing to secure a job teaching English in Europe (which was the only thing I really, really knew I wanted). It was difficult, discouraging and disheartening. Very disheartening. Living at home doing manual labor and not making much money not only hurt my pride, it hurt my heart. I'd given up grad school (at least for a few years) and a conventional career for the opportunity to teach abroad. I'd sunk $1200 and 120 hours into getting TEFL certification. I had bought the line that there are hundreds of jobs abroad and that everyone wants to learn English. I prepared myself for Europe. And then it didn't happen. And it didn't happen. And it didn't happen. And I lost hope.
It was three or four months before something pulled at my heart again. This time it wasn't a career. It wasn't a place. It was a concept - living in community. And in community with someone who shared many of my thoughts, ideals, interests and insights. This concept is part of what inspired the move to KC in the first place. I bought into this idea. In fact, I think I sold it to myself. I justified a move to KC and started looking for ways to make it happen.
I came across a youth internship. I have a substantial background in youth ministry, and though it doesn't really interest me as a career choice any longer, it is something in which I still take interest. I applied for the internship. I got the internship. (I later learned I was the only applicant). And within two weeks of agreeing to the position I was offered not one, but two jobs in the Czech Republic. I could feasibly go to KC for the summer and then to Czech in the fall, but that would mean yet another move. What if I formed community in KC? What if I got attached? What if I found a job? What if I wanted to stay?
Against my proclivity to move wherever whenever possible, I thought I might do something crazy and opt towards "stability." I told the schools in Czech to find another English instructor. I let go of that dream and embraced the community I would be forming and moving into.
I spent 10-12 weeks doing "youth things," making some use of my college education, but not much. During that time I lived with one of the church families - which was wonderfully generous of them and financially beneficial for me. The internship wasn't great and it wasn't awful. It was what it was - 10 weeks of doing whatever anyone could come up with for me to do. I was slightly discouraged, but not overly. I viewed it as a means of getting my foot in a door that opened to Kansas City.
Sometime in August I began looking for jobs in the area. Writing jobs, tutoring jobs, waitressing jobs, barista jobs, administrative jobs, secretarial work. I applied for anything that sounded remotely interesting and even some jobs that didn't, but none of them came through. August 22 my internship ended and I went back to Lincoln to visit my family and pick up the rest of the things I would need in order to move out of the house and into a shared apartment, which was supposed to happen the following week. All was "go" for community living.
And then I got a phone call. The roommate I was going to move out and in with informed me that she couldn't. Full stop. We'd spoken of this potential move for the past 4 months. I'd taken the internship so we could spend the summer living in the same area. I'd given up teaching in Czech to be a roomie in KC. And now she realizes she can't move out, which leaves me in my current state - without a job, a roommate, a home, or any real reason to go back to Kansas City (aside from all of that stuff I need to move out of the house where I've been staying).
This is just the way things happen - for me. I have no direction, no idea, no possibilities. I start grasping at nothing and by some act of God I create options. I come up with enough reasons to choose one of the options that I created. I make the decision. I get excited about it. I start envisioning the plan I've made for my life. I take an imaginary walk down the path that I've set out for myself. It looks lovely. I walk back to real life and start taking the first steps. And then I fall on my face and discover that things aren't as lovely as I'd pictured.
And it is in this place, on the ground, nursing my wounds, overcome with frustration, failure and fear, that I write this post. I don't write it to solicit your pity, but to admit to myself that I'm tired of falling. I'm tired of failing. I'm tired of trying. And I'm afraid of getting up and continuing on down the road that doesn't look very promising. I have no one to blame but myself. I made these decisions. And here I am...
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