Depression, Seminary, and Other Things

Bsd

I'm sitting on my front stoop, wearing fingerless gloves so I can type, and attempting to avoid sitting on the ice frozen on the steps, because the moment I stepped into my silent, flourescently lit apartment and slumped down onto the futon couch in my accustomed position of the past few weeks, my creativity up and died.

Suffering for art, I am, and you guys are going to have to tell me if it's worth it. 

I'm unemployed. Say it again, with feeling. I'M UNEMPLOYED. What a grown up thing to say. Only adults are unemployed. Unemployment leads to depression, and I'm depressed. Sort of. The thing is, I'm a naturally optimistic person. Thanks to the One Above, who blessed me with an Annie-like disposition, there's usually a smile on my face, and something that I'm happy about. Whether it's finding my recently engaged friend an apartment in Crown Heights, dinner with my brother, or even just a damn good trashy novel, it's hard to realize that I'm down. 

But I am. 

You can't see the walls in my room, let alone the floor. The requisite chair for draping clothes on is entirely overused. My suitcase from my trip home Chanukah time still lies open and vomiting clothing, of which I remarkably have both too much and not enough of. 

I stay up all night, sleep all day, and am officially addicted to the Internet. 

It's just so easy to escape. 

But there comes a point where you can't escape anymore. When even the girl who's prided herself on the ability to fall asleep instantly, anywhere, finds herself lying awake, wondering if this is the way the rest of her forseeable future is going to be. 

That's how I felt this morning (well, this afternoon, when I finally got up). 

I looked on CrownHeights.Info and Shmais, and saw the same two job advertisements that I've already emailed about and gotten no response to last week still up. 

On impulse, I opened up craiglist.com and started emailing anyone who had a job that sounded even remotely interesting - mystery shoppe? Why the heck not? Dogwalker? I like dogs! There's even someone on there looking for someone to write a blog. 

This is when I realized that this wasn't working. I wasn't going to find the 9-5 job I'd been dreaming of. And if I did, I probably would hate working there. 

So I picked myself up off that all-too comfortable couch, threw on some clothes (yes, I was still in pajamas at 4 pm), and ran around the corner to see if the job that was almost perfect, but not quite, that I had refused last week, was still available. 

We'll see what happens with that, but the good news is - I'm no longer depressed. 

Now if I could just get myself to tackle my room...

Now for the second portion of this increasingly pointless (see, there's that depression again! This has a point. I'm not sure what, but there is one. I hope.) post.

Seminary. 

I have seminary issues. They really deserve their own post, so I'm just going to give you a taste of what is to come. 

Standing on my street corner, waiting for the light to change, I run into, not one, not two, but three (three! count 'em! what are the odds?) girls I went to seminary with, all of whom are now bewigged, and one of whom is most definitely bepregnated. Really, G-d? I don't see any of these girls ever, and now I've got three of them on my street corner?  

To take a cue from sarabonne's great post Dress to Impress, just looking at what we were wearing should give you some insight into my seminary issues:

Them: Wool coats, straight brown wigs, kneelength (that very carefully kneelength skirt that will definitely cover your knees when sitting) skirts, suede pointy boots.

Me: Cotton jacket, wavy blond hair, midcalflength vintage wool skirt (with a slit that ends right below my knees), brown leather buckled brogues. 

Here's another one: What do we do?

Them: Teach.

Me: Well, nothing. But no teaching, never teaching, (unless you count the writing workshop I'm arranging). 

I get sucked in though. I lived, went to school with, laughed with (and at), ate, rode the bus with, shared my nephew's birth with, had incredibly bonding experiences with all these girls. 

Just two years ago (it's my nephew's second birthday today!). 

I'm a social person - I like people. I like talking. I like listening. 

So here I am, standing at this street corner, and I want to be excited to see them. I do. 

But I'm not. 

I'm trying to keep myself from getting too personal because I have a tendency to do that, and from talking too much, because I have a tendency to do that, too, and I just want to have an honest connection with one of these girls, one of them who looks at me and sees me, but I don't. 

Which is why I have seminary issues. 

In other news, I have my writing group tonight at Mimulo's and Fradel got in some new teas. Should be exciting. You might even get more than one post out of me today.