Symbols

I originally started this blog on a lark.  My husband pressured me because he thinks that I write well and so he thought that this might be fun for me and it is,  but more than just being fun, my blog has become sort of an online form of therapy for me (and these days, I need it).  It is cathartic for me, having people read the blogs and make comments about them is great, but the opportunity to void my mind of some 'mental noise' of which I seem to have an abundance, is welcomed.  The blog I had planned to write today stemmed from an incident in which woman in a store asked me if I had grandchildren.  Briefly, the gist of the post was going to be centered around that fact that while chronologically (had I started having children earlier in my marriage), I am old enough to be a grandma, the word 'grandma' does not necessarily evoke feelings of youthful exuberance to me and basically makes me feel cranky, annoyed and in need of a serious make-over.  That said, a comment made this morning by my husband so far superseded the granny dig that I decided to write about it instead.  Take a moment and get some coffee or a cold drink, I think this might be a long post.

I feel the need to interject a disclaimer before I get started because at face value, the comment was so banal that it probably would not have even registered as an issue for most people.  Additionally, I am passionate about everything, both positively and negatively, so things usually get to me more than they do the average person.  Living with revolving unemployment (it has become like a boomerang, we get rid of it, but it keeps coming back) and underemployment over the past almost five years has truly not been a walk in the park by any means.  The situation works on your psyche over time, it erodes your self-esteem, heaps on the self-doubt and makes you question your self-worth.  Long-term and repeated unemployment necessitates 'doing whatever it takes' to land the next job from attending endless networking meetings and events to revamping your resume a hundred times so that it is tailored to each and every job to which you apply.  Basically, you need to act like a marionette, dancing along to whatever change the headhunter or HR person pulling your strings wants you to do next.  Then, this morning, my husband informed me that he had been speaking to an HR person last night (at his networking function du jour), and she had mentioned he would need to shave his beard because he would probably not get hired where we live if he were to have one.  Seriously?

Frankly, I am so not okay with that for so many reasons, none the least of which is the beard itself as even I realize that he can grow it back.  For me, it is what the beard represents about which I take issue.  What I resent is that this is yet another string being pulled, another ridiculous and inane step that this man needs to take in order to have a chance at a job. Let me preface this by saying that his beard is not of the 'John Lennon during the Let It Be phase' nor does he resemble anyone from Duck Dynasty.  I am angry that he needs to alter his appearance as if by doing so, he will somehow become a more qualified candidate for underemployment at a particular company.

If effort to find another job--again and again and again--could morph into a real job with a salary, then my husband should be a CEO by now.  He has raised the job search bar so high he is even harnessing his search efforts and giving back to the community by volunteering his time as the head of a networking group at our church.  He certainly never expected anyone to hand him a job, he has put in an incredible amount of time over the past years trying to secure a stable position in an unstable economy.

So, yes, I know I need to 'put on my big girl panties' and deal with the loss of his beard--for the record, that I love-- because he will continue to do whatever it takes (and I will continue to be ticked off about it our lack of choice in the process)to land a job.  Let's face it, desperation is not sexy, but apparently,  it does seem to need to be clean-shaven where we live.

Jinxed

I had a revelation this morning while putting away the laundry. Before I tell you what it was, however, you will need a little back story to completely understand the excitement about it.  When we purchased our house, the realtor told us that the original owner had been a newly engaged man who was buying the house for his soon-to-be wife.  He had had the carpet removed on the main level and had replaced it with beautiful inlaid wood flooring with a pretty inlaid medallion in the center of the great room.  Additionally, he had had the carpeted stairs replaced with hardwood and if that was not enough to impress his fiancee, he had a medallion installed of two intertwined hearts just outside the master bedroom on the upper landing. Clearly, this guy was a romantic, however, his fiancee was not impressed as she dumped him just before the wedding.  While I have no idea as to the complexity of their issues nor am I suggesting that some inlaid flooring had anything to do with the couple's demise (if so, wow, the girl must have really loved carpet, huh?), as I mentioned I did have a revelation as I stepped on those hearts this morning.  Basically, I have come to the conclusion that my house is jinxed.  Yup, bad juju abounds here.

Allow me to explain my theory.  Not only did Romeo get jilted, but he could not wait to unload his precious 'gift' on the first buyer who came along, a house flipper who knew less about home renovations than I do about rocket science.  When the flipper decided to sell, in we walked all stressed out and frantic that one, we had to move to a place that would not have fallen on my top 200 list of places to live if I sat down to think about them and two, we had about 20 minutes to make a decision about a house before we needed to return home to deal with the move.  Long story short, ever since we moved in we have faced a years' long series of unfortunate events including but not limited to four bouts of long-term unemployment, me testifying for the prosecution in a criminal trial (don't ask), the complete loss of water in our house as a result of some sludge issue in our pipes (which happened the very first weekend after we moved in), and not one, but two major water leaks resulting in replacing not one, but two ceilings.  I could go on but I would bore you and I am already depressed enough as it is these days.

So, there you have it. i am in dire need of an exorcist or my local 'bad juju remover' ASAP.  The moral of this story...and this is really important so listen up...before you get engaged, think long and hard about the commitment, because if you reconsider your decision, you could ruin the lives of a lot more people than just your ex-fiance(e).