Patience

Patience is not my strong suit. I can be a very patient person but I'm not always good at it. For the past week I've been working hard on this. Angela and I arrived back in Yuma a week ago yesterday. We had plans to start packing up our apartment, to go to Los Angeles and look at new apartments, to secure jobs, and to move. Yes, we had plans. And yes, I know the old saying about what God does when we make plans.

Needless to say there have been no job offers. You all would be among the first to hear. I've applied for a lot of jobs in the last week. So has Angela. She's cold called schools, sent emails, talked with the headhunting agency she paid to help her find a job. And still nothing. She's been told that hiring will pick up again in August when schools start to freak out. Again we're on a different time table here. I think I'm running into two roadblocks: one, I don't have a local L.A. address so I have a feeling that's limiting me in the types of jobs I am applying for (let's just say they're hourly, not salaried) and two, I know I am overqualified. I'm overeducated, I've had a lot of diverse experience and I've been told by employers that they know I won't stick around. No matter how much I tell them I will, they don't believe me.

Also, we didn't go to L.A. I made reservations at a hotel (the hostel and on-campus places were full) and everything but it just didn't feel right. We'd found all these apartments to look at but we really have no concept of a budget yet. Maybe we'll be able to afford the two-bedroom with laundry hook-ups for $1850 or maybe we'll have to try the one-bedroom for $1100. We just don't know and I just didn't want to get my hopes up that much. Or put that much effort and money into an apartment search that wouldn't end with an application and a down-payment.

We've started packing, and now stopped. There's not much point in continuing right now. I packed all the pots but two and now cooking is like making a meal on the trail a hundred years ago. Last night I finally unpacked a box to find my exercise videos so I could work out this morning. (I have carved a small space between boxes and moved the living room chair to the dining room, here's hoping that goes well.) So we're half in boxes and half out. And trying to fill our time with other things right now. Yesterday we went to the movies and Walmart. (Can I just say I choked when I saw our bill at Walmart - $91 for hardly anything, the only meat we bought was bologna, fat-free bologna that might not even be real meat!!!)

So...I'm trying to be patient. I've decided to get on the job sites once a day and look for possibilities. I can't do it every fifteen minutes or I'll go crazier than I already am. I'll apply for the promising jobs in the area we're committed to (UCLA is in the neighborhood of Beverly Hills, Westwood, Santa Monica, etc.) and write some really good cover letters. I'll keep working on my novel because maybe that's what this period of in-betweenness is partially about. I'll read some more (Just finished Janet Evanovich's Four to Score, seriously, they are addicting). I'll go to the matinee movies (because really, five bucks isn't going to be the end of me). And I'll leave the worrying to God.

At least I'll try to. It's hard. This is my life, my dream, my future. It's really hard not to feel guilty about being at home all day, not working, not bringing in money right now. That's one of the hardest parts about writing for me, allowing myself the time and space to write without feeling guilty about doing it. But I'm going to try. Maybe that's my lesson from all of this, patience, for a lot of different reasons.