Deferred Dreaming

I’ve been displaced since 2018, at least physically. Mentally and emotionally, I’ve been adrift for longer than I can pinpoint.

I left the home I lived in for 20 years to downsize to a small trailer that was not mine in the sense of homeownership — I was just renting it. It was a place to hang my hat until I could decide on how to move forward. Next steps involved leaving the company I’d been with for 24 years and the town I’d lived in since I was six, and starting somewhere again somewhere new.

In preparation, I had multiple yard sales, unloaded kitchenware and cookbooks on friends, and Marie Kondo-ed everything remaining to make sure it brought me enough joy to box it up and transport it across the country. Living in the same town for 43 years should give you some insight into how I feel about moving, and change in general.

And then the pandemic happened. I questioned whether or not it was a good idea to quit my job and move up to the PNW where housing (like most of the country now) is complicated, and no job lined up. If it hadn’t been for my sister inviting me to stay with her on her turkey farm in western Washington, I probably would have stayed put, grinning and bearing an unstable situation that I knew was no longer sustainable.

I’ve been here on the farm, looking for work, for 8 months now. I’m introverted by nature, so in the beginning, I embraced the solitude and settled into a regular routine of making coffee, feeding the dogs, applying for jobs, and checking my emails for requests to interview. After four months I began to wonder if I wasn’t as awesome as I thought I was. But after reading countless career articles here on Medium, I was comforted by the fact that what I was experiencing was “normal” and part of the process.

But 8 months? Uh, that’s a long time, and my savings are dwindling. If I don’t land the dream job soon, I’ll be applying online at WalMart (no offense, WalMart, I’m just looking for something … smaller). Obsessively pouring over career recommendations here and on LinkedIn and everywhere else on the internet, I’ve discovered that applying online is one of the most difficult ways to get hired. You’re just one of hundreds or thousands of applications that have to catch a recruiter’s eye. Turns out I’m supposed to be networking.

Networking for me is right up there with “root canal”, “yearly woman’s exam”, and “tax season”. I struggle with personal relationships. Connecting with people isn’t easy for me, and yet I’m realizing it’s something you really have to make an effort to do if you want to get your foot in the door at the company of your dreams. And I can whine all day long about how much I suck at it (even though I really do long to connect with people), but the fact remains. People who need people are the luckiest people in the world. Just ask Barbara Streisand.

Also, see “networking for introverts during a pandemic” … has anyone written about that? Because I’d be super into those tips right about now.

No, but seriously — no man is an island and I’ve had to embrace that. I’m putting myself out there, asking to learn more about the people in my network and how we might be able to mutually encourage and help each other. And while I’m still sitting out here on the farm in pajama bottoms (all business on top for those Zoom interviews), those little kernels of connection are keeping me sane and hopeful that I’m worthy of finding my place in an organization that values me and champions my values.

All of us are ready to return to the land of the living. I am, too, with a new sense of identity, a job, and a new place to call home.