Returning to a routine...

One of the biggest challenges with being unemployed, one I also faced back in 2009, is keeping a routine in place in order to prevent malaise and apathy from creeping into the job hunt.  I have tried to keep myself engaged in projects that allow me to be creative, but I find myself struggling to stay motivated as much as I should.  It started about two weeks ago when Bertie came down with a cold, which then made its way to my respiratory system.  It was not the kind of illness that makes you bed-ridden by any stretch, more like the kind that you would complain about having while you were at work thinking about how much better it would be if you were at home on the couch with a cup of hot tea and pharmaceutically clouded head.  Well, without a job to keep it in perspective, I just lost motivation and found myself lounging about for a few days. 

Of course, I kept checking my email and maintaining the job board searches that prevent me from feeling like an unemployed leach, but anything beyond what I could justify as the minimum amount of effort was simply more than I was willing to do.  Which brings me to today...I have felt better for almost a whole week now, but I have yet to actually return to the routine of creative output that was keeping me sane.  I have three very simple reviews to write for Examiner.com and yet I cannot get more than a paragraph or two into them without succumbing to the urge to wander the interwebs for something that requires less effort and provides more instant gratification. 

I can also cop-out and blame the weather that has been so fickle this year.  I cannot remember the month of May bringing so much rain to the central valley in all the years that I have lived here.  Alas, I will only hate myself to mention how little I have done on my fiction, so I'll leave it at that.  At least this has allowed me an opportunity to get the fingers flexed so I can hope to be prepared for the next creative urge to come over me.

The difficulty of "Just Do It"

In between the scouring of want ads, job boards, and corporate websites trying to find a home for my talents that will simultaneously pay my bills, I am trying to stay productive and creative.  Most days I don't.  The crushing reality of being unemployed with two kids and job prospects that seem designed to either drive me insane or work me to death tend to discourage much creativity.  It is not always the case, but the creativity born of such frustration usually just reinforces a crappy mood.  I feel like I should be writing every day in an effort to practice myself closer to autonomous employment, but the actual act of getting my thoughts arranged into packets of electronic data feels so foreign in the middle of a room shared by two children under four and a wife who feels the need to speak to me while I do this. 

Obviously, it is up to me to make whatever changes I need to make in order to allow myself the opportunity to write more, if that is what I truly want to be doing.  I do not intend to make myself out as a victim here.  I'm simply venting my frustrations with the situation, and writing at the same time.  Killing multiple birds with a single stone and the like. 

The fact of the matter is that I want to work.  I want to feel like I am contributing something positive to the world.  Maybe I should give that up since I tried that with Red Cross and that put me where I am today.  It seems like the entry level jobs don't want me because they fear that I will run to the next job available, other jobs don't want me because my experience costs too much, and therefore I don't even get calls back or letters of consolation.  No amount of response letters or tailored resumes seem to make a difference.  I must persist, I will persist; I just had to take a minute to complain about it.

Where do I fit?

As I navigate the various job-boards looking at descriptions and requirements, pay and hours, I find myself even more disenfranchised than before.  I'm not against the idea of working, in fact, I rather miss certain aspects of it already.  What troubles me is how much trouble I am having trying to figure where I fit into the equation of the economy.

I am capable of being trained to do just about anything, and I thrive in environments where I can use my customer service skills to make people happy and feel like they were treated like a human being and not just a dollar sign.  The trouble is how little that seems to matter anymore.  I don't like being disingenuous, but it seems to be the one qualification that runs through every industry. 

I guess it comes down to creativity being the answer; that I must push myself in my creative endeavors such that I am afforded the opportunity to make it my livelihood.  This is frightening because I have given myself over to my internal critic for so long that I rarely get more than a page or two before I feel like I lack anything interesting to say.  I'm hoping that I can make arrangements to acquire a laptop that will allow me to extricate myself from the distractions of the house and get some time to put my mind to the keys.

New Article and Bertie's Check Up

Hell, I thought I was going to write something, but now I'm done.  Just finished an article and I'm done being in front of the computer for now.