A chronicle, Vol. 2: Finding work after Covid.
The search and result!
At the start of it I just applied. Clear about the type of work I wanted, but never truly knowing precisely how to find.
Each step was a new struggle. Something minuscule gained. A casual accumulation of pain. Too many failed and defeated moments to recount them all. Yet every silent-rejection, un-worded, self-diagnosed. The list of companies that passed runs closer to 300. Some of them call me now, LinkedIn messages delicately asking of my time.
The search and result!
Much of those disappointments are faded now. These chronicles the only record of how brutal it all was –to remind and remember, so that I hope never to take these accomplishments for granted now.
"The hard parts are the good parts," I kept saying to myself. I rode my bike, witnessed hardship. I thought about how precious these moments of difficulty were. How uniquely valuable this phase of searching for work was. I got emotional thinking about the day this would pass. I dreamed of it, of what I’d do with pavement ahead on the road. I biked, shedding tears for where I was. I wanted it with everything I had.
I'm writing to share that I've landed. I've accepted an offer. It happens like that. In an instant. One second you're dreaming of a way out of poverty, your self worth, of a career, of your greater human goal — the next you're awake with an offer in hand wondering if it's been a dream, if it's even possible to have the dreams we've had.
Sometimes I feel like it's all happened to me, something universal, the ordinary nature of our potential, mostly out of our control. And if I shouldn't blame the job search disappointments on myself, then too, I shouldn't take credit for what the world just offered.
Perhaps a touch of survivor's guilt, because all I did was continue. And maybe that's the kernel: that we find joy in whatever the universe got planned for us. Survival. Expecting nothing, staying hopeful!
It’s hard to believe it’s happened. And yet at every second I fear it’ll be taken away again. I’ve had that many close calls. I don’t dare allow myself to get comfortable. Survival does that too – the drive to gather and protect, so that we might have what to build our future on.
I shake with tears in the privacy of the road while biking, in the privacy at the gym while sweating out the weight I’d gained, in remembrance of the struggle, in mourning of loss and anguish faced. I can see it, solo biker crawling uphill, and I hurt for him even though I know the struggle is gold.
Some of this as record. No complaints. Not during or after. Nothing makes you more grateful than hardship or failure. That drive. Something definitively fought for.
Some of this as record, to compliment that first installment, the hardest chapter. Some of this as healing, to come to terms with what-all just transpired.
For Covid relief I took time to volunteer. A role opened up and they asked me to join. I started a short term warehouse manager gig. I knew my story. Practiced my lines. Believed in what I had to offer. I hadn’t the time to wound.
Survival does that too.
I focused solely on where I'd hoped to be of value. I told myself, "no longer with fear."
Friendship at utmost. All else a chapter.
