The Job I'm Leaving on the Dressing Room Floor...

There are some people who would say I have very little to complain about.

They are absolutely, one hundred percent correct.

And I am, all in all, an almost ridiculously happy person. Or am I a ridiculously content person? I've never been sure. Either way, I like my life. A lot.

But I don't really know how to get by without complaining.

Right now, it's mostly student loans. Which are scary. And sharing a bedroom with my younger sister, which is both uncomfortable for an almost 26 year old woman and embarrassing. And then there's my utter lack of focus or direction, which I don't know...is this my fault? Was I just born like this? Is my mother to blame? My mother still isn't sure what she wants to do with her life. Maybe I inherited this feeling from her, a long with all her physical characteristics.

And today, it's this job interview I had.

Today I interviewed for a job as a Box Office Assistant at a regional theater in the area. This is a job for which I am overqualified, but that doesn't bother me; I'm overqualified for lots of jobs I end up doing. It offers benefits and it would work around my teaching schedule. Plus, I would be working in a theater-- glorious, glorious theater, which I sometimes miss so much it just aches inside.

Problem? It doesn't pay enough.

Going for this job interview-- which I almost didn't do-- was like trying on an expensive dress. Not a one thousand dollar dress, not one that is decimal places out of your budget, but one that is maybe one hundred dollars over, when you're at that place balancing your budget where one hundred dollars almost might as well be one thousand. And you think, "I'll try on this dress just for fun. I would never actually buy it."

So you step into the dressing room with it draped over your arm and already, even before it's on, it just feels better than the dresses you can afford. And when you're standing in the dress, looking in the mirror, you fall a little bit in love: not just with the dress but with the person you are in the dress and the person you could be. It's just lovely. And suddenly, you think maybe that extra money that you swore you wouldn't spend, that you can't spend, that is perhaps all that is keeping you in your apartment or eating or some such trifle, is not only worth it but entirely necessary for your future happiness.

That is what going on this job interview was like.

But you can't buy the dress. And you...or, I suppose we can switch to 'I' now...can't have the job. Because you, I, we are getting beyond that point where we get to buy frivolous dresses and have fun, low-paying jobs. We're adults now and we have to save those extra bucks and shoulder a bit of responsibility.

Sigh.