Maybe I'm doing this job hunting thing all wrong.

Maybe I'm doing this job hunting thing all wrong.

I've applied to a couple of jobs that I really really want, and to a couple that I'm kinda meh about. The ones I like are as follows: copywriter at a really nice ad agency (but they refer to the company as something else, something like "communications center," I forget), editorial assistant at one of the best magazines in the country, and staff writer at a website I actually go to. I landed an interview with the agency, but not with the magazine and the website. The agency hasn't called back and I'm sort of losing hope at this point tbh.

Here's the thing; I want to start a career, not just have a job and a salary, and I want that career to be in an industry that I relate to, where I know the work is significant in the aspects of life that I subscribe to, and where the people are creative, intelligent, and know what's going on. I want my work to be a part of my life, not just an office where I spend 40 days a week in, something that I can forget about when I go home. I want the kind of work that makes me want to get up in the morning, something that invigorates me.

Am I being too ambitious? Am I just not cut out for the kind of work that I want to do? I'd like to think not, because I worked for a magazine before, and even though the job was sometimes hell, I loved going to work. I loved being exposed to the world that I want to be in, and I thought I was making it. Apparently I wasn't.

I wonder what's wrong. Am I too "fun" during interviews? Are my credentials not good enough? (I come from a pretty good school, and I've worked at one of the best publishing houses in the country, just to be clear.) Is it because I don't wear slacks to interviews? If I were thinner and slightly more pogi, would I get the jobs I want? Or am I just not as good as I think I am? Oh dear god I sincerely hope it's not the last one.

Maybe I'm doing this job hunting thing all wrong.

Maybe I should just settle for the proofreader job at the financial publishing company I'm almost sure I'm gonna get (I'm a damn good proofreader). Maybe I should try out English tutoring with companies that hire in the dozens. Maybe I should just settle.

Let the bough break, let it come down crashing.

I've created a playlist of, in my opinion, the most heartbreaking songs. A lot of Robyn, Sara Bareilles, and the odd Atozzio. Sam Smith, Adele, Whitney, Up Dharma Down, etc. Wallowing is a good thing, because it confirms what you're feeling, it makes the situation real, it slaps you in the face that hey, it's actually happening, you're actually alone now. It makes you accept the fact.

What sucks are the happy songs. Whenever I hear a genuinely happy song, the kind that sad people write, it's incredibly heartbreaking. Sad people write the happiest songs because they're not used to it, I think, so when they feel that joy, that blip of happiness, they put it into words so beautifully, they make it a song. So Bareilles's "I Choose You" has been a real bitch lately.

It's not the sad songs that get to me. They help me, actually, because they push me to acknowledge whatever's going on, I get to see what I actually feel and I get the chance to confront those feelings. It's the happy songs that make you feel like shit and make you wish you could go back to two months ago and just not fuck things up. It's the happy songs that remind you, it's the happy songs that say remember when you felt this way?

Here, have my heart, it's all poured out.

Throughout my entire life I've never regretted my decisions. I always believed that whatever I did led me to where I am, and I'm not very big on the "what if" mindset. Sure, I'd regret wearing a red shirt with blue shoes, but those things are trivial. I don't do regret.

Until now.

See, last December, I decided to end things with him. Why, I'm not gonna tell you. Let's just put it in the most cliché way possible; it wasn't him, it was me. And before you roll your eyes and raise your brows, let me tell you, it really was. I never felt that before, where it felt so wrong to be with a person even though there was, technically, nothing wrong. I just knew that something was off, something needed to get fixed, something needed to change. With me, with him, with us, I don't know. I was confused, and I almost never am because I usually keep my feelings in check. And at the time I couldn't.

The saint that he is, of course, understood me, gave me what I needed - space, time, all the things someone going through a personal struggle needs. He was, comme d'habitude, perfect. We didn't stop talking, however. I couldn't stop because I was so used to him, and I didn't want to fully let go. I was incredibly selfish. Still am.

And then he decided he had enough of me hurting him over and over and over again, because to be honest, I did. I hurt him over and over and over again.

And for a while I though he finally realized it, he has finally accepted that I'm not good for him. That he could be so much happier without me. I told him that once, you know. I asked him, "What if you could be happier with someone else?" "But I'm already happy with you," he replied.

And right now that's what's breaking me, that I let go - woop, no, scratch that - I pushed away this person because I was being a brat. I let my emotions get the better of me, I gave in so easily. I convinced him that he's better off without me. And maybe he is, and I don't know what to do anymore.

A lot of people say that the nights are difficult. I disagree. Waking up is much more difficult. I still reach for him when I get up in the morning. And then I remember his little quirks, like constantly scratching his eyes, or falling asleep instantly, oh and on instinct hugging me when I call his name out when I wake up in the middle of the night, and I break inside.

I don't do regret, except now. I regret having hurt him so much, I regret being so selfish when he was the best thing that happened to me, the best person to have come into my life.

And I'm a whore now because if I stop even for a second, if I'm not preoccupied and buzzing, if I have even the slightest blip in activity, I think of him, and how we're not together, and it breaks my heart so so much.