I don't want to sound like the typical Generation X-er, belly-aching about getting a raw deal, but I gotta say, I can't help feeling like if I had been born 30 years earlier my life would have been easier. The prosperity, high employment rates, career stability, real estate prices, blind self-belief in relation to parenthood, unfettered access to welfare support, and vertical manoeuvrability that the Baby Boomers enjoyed. I would have liked some of that. I really would have.
Sometimes it's hard to tell which parts of my life path have been chosen by me or for me. Being born in the year I was born to the parents I was born to, I am not eligible for the UK passport that most of my cousins enjoy. Europe was an unattainable dream. To this day, I've never been there. Moving out of home at 18 so that I could attend university, digging myself into debt through the Student Supplement Loan so that I could afford to live in housing that was of an acceptable standard. I didn't do as well at university as I could have. Looking back, for the first two years of university I didn't really know how to study properly. My study habits were sporadic, undisciplined, and unfocused. By the time I had learned how to study, I already had earned myself two years worth of average grades when I should have been excelling. My father died, and the ensuing self-destructive depression that accompanied my mourning took years to come through. I acted like a jerk, drank too much too often, but I didn't know how to access mental health services that would have helped me through that time. My honours year was a debacle, unhinged by an unsupportive supervisor. Upon finishing university (and I think this happens to every student to an extent) I was directionless and lost. I tried getting government jobs, but had no luck. Turned away by graduate intake programs, I ended up debt collecting in Melbourne. When that job threatened to do my head in, along with the floundering relationship that I had come to Melbourne to pursue, I arranged to go to Japan the first time. I wasn't running to Japan, I was running away from what had happened to me. Japan is the only place where I have had a stable income, a stable job... and in many regards, I think my great affection for the place is based largely on the economic stability that I enjoyed there. It's the only place where I have ever had the opportunity to make plans and know that I could go through with them.
When you go through university, there is this tacit idea that you are setting yourself up for a career. When that career doesn't eventuate, the anger and bitterness starts to set in. When you end up working in administrative support for people who did the same degree, but just had luckier upbringings: stable households, supportive middle-class parents, less financial stress - sometimes it's hard not to feel like someone's rubbing your face in it. Raw talent is nothing without perseverance and focus. Learning how to focus and persevere is a lesson that I feel like I am continually having to learn.
Six years after my first flight to Japan, twenty temp jobs later... I'm tired. I'm tired of feeling like I'm stuck on the outside looking in at the prosperity and happiness of others. I want permanency. I want the opportunities that come with being able to plan further into the future than one or two months. I want this craziness, all this, to end.
Look, I'm sorry about this post. But I just don't feel like I can do happy faces today. Applying for jobs always makes me miserable. I've applied for at least 50 full time permanent positions over the last six years, and I just don't know what I'm doing wrong. If I put in for jobs that are too low for my experience level, I don't get them. I assume it's because they think I'll leave. If I put in for jobs that are a bit above my level, I don't get them either. I assume it's because they think I won't be able to bridge the gap. And you can never really anticipate what the rest of the field is going to be like. In Tasmania, an over-abundance of over-qualified people applying for mid-level jobs created a paucity of opportunities for someone like myself. The employment market in Tassie is awful. But even in Melbourne, nothing seems to match my experience and education level. How can you succeed in life if there's no avenues of opportunity? I've done my best, given the resources and experiences I have, and I've got nothing to show for it except an accumulating sense resentment and alienation. It's gotten to the point now where I am starting to experience anxiety symptoms, especially at work. I'm easily upset and cry at the drop of a hat. And that's no good. No one wants a temp that keeps having to run off to the bathroom for a little sob. The pressure of perceived expectation and reputation building adds to the overwhelming pressure and feeds back into the anxiety loop. Sometimes I feel like I'm cracking up.
The list of things that I can not do because of the lack of stability in our incomes is long and sad. I can't buy real estate, or get a mortgage. I can't get a gym membership because I don't know if I will be able to afford it next month. I might have to cancel my private health insurance. I can't offer my potential children a life. My savings may soon be gone, just paying the rent and eating. I haven't been able to afford to go to the physiotherapist for the last month, and so my knee injury is worsening again. I can't take my car to get serviced (it doesn't need to be serviced until February, but I'm concerned that I won't be able to afford to get it serviced then either). Living from week to week in a cycle of job applications and rejections, it has started to get into my head, and destroy my self-esteem. I feel timid and unworthy. I haven't been able to stand up for myself when I should have, I have been saying "yes" with my mouth, when my heart has been saying "no." The anxiety worsens...
I need a lucky break. I need to start making my own luck. But in a negative cycle, it's hard to get out. There is a certain amount of optimism required just to apply for a job, and after so many rejections, the well of optimism begins to run dry. Every hope that you pin on an application is a disappointment waiting to happen. It's hard to keep committing scarce resources to an avenue that doesn't seem to be bearing results. It's hard to keep submitting yourself to a process that seems destined to fail. It's hard. Sometimes I just want to give up.
Sometimes I think about my situation and remind myself that my lot isn't so bad. My friend Belinda lost a child last year. A little baby. I don't know the details, but Belinda's little girl had been pretty unwell since she was born, and was in and out of hospital for the entirety of her short life. I only know from watching the facebook status updates. And one day she just passed away. So unfair. After Belinda and her husband had fought so hard, the little baby they'd cherished so much and sacrificed so much for was just plucked away. No reason, no rhyme, just plain unfair it is... I think about their struggle, and I feel like such a douche for complaining about my lot in life. I've not suffered at all compared to what they've lost. They're often in my thoughts, even though I haven't seen them in the flesh for a very, very long time. It's a reality check. If I know anyone who deserves a lucky break, it's Belinda.
Maybe this is the only permanency we will ever really know in life: the permanency of death. The death of loved ones and the absence it creates. From my father, to Belinda's baby... only never is forever.
People say glib shit: "life only throws at you what you can handle." I'd just like to say: that's bullshit. Life throws stuff at you that no one should ever have to deal with. Life is unfair and asks too much of some people, and nothing of others. People say glib shit: "you make your own luck." That's bullshit too. Sometimes your luck makes you, the person that anyone becomes is partly born from the circumstances they find themselves in. People say glib shit because they don't want to hear it anymore. They're busy with their own problems. A heightened level of interconnectedness between people results in an overload of emotions, people screaming into the Web 2.0 void. We are all too much for each other to bear.
Trying to find a path in life that is not dishonourable and soul-destroying - trying to find a path in life that is fair... stuck between letting life wash over you and trying to make your own destiny: what is a good way to live your life? What should you do when it feels like there is no point? These questions... there's no easy answers... I wonder what life is like for people who don't think about these things? It must be nice to be ignorant sometimes...
I'll tell you about New Zealand and Thrall and other stuff in another post. For now, I'm just going to go back to looking at job websites and try and find those last little bits of optimism to throw at these potential employers. I'm sorry to be a big whinge-bag, but sometimes life gets you down. And you know, it's all part of being human. It's a long and winding road, and sometimes you find yourself in a place called "here" in a time called "now" that you hate. The next step in the journey is the question; and after feeling like so many steps have ended up being the wrong steps, it takes a lot of courage to make a decision about what to do next.
I'm going to go have a cup of tea with my friend Fiona this afternoon. Maybe that will supply some solace, clarity, and perspective? Tea often helps.
