The Resume

I debated for a long time about how I wanted to start this post given that despite this being my own personal forum, I still vacillate between the sharing my true thoughts and providing a more watered-down and socially palatable version of my truth.  Since by now (if you have been following along), everyone is well aware of our situation dealing with long-term unemployment--and the fact that I am not in a particular good mood today--I figured I would put my filter aside and tell it like it is for me today.  Unemployment stinks and dealing with it over the course of months and years is truly unbearable.  It permeates each and everything I do each day. While I want to believe that there is more to life than money,  it is important and necessary and not only for the big things like keeping a roof over our heads, but also for the small things, the things others take for granted like getting frozen yogurt for the children or going to the movies or, dare I say it, taking a vacation (a thing we have not done since 2006).  Finding a job is so all-encompassing that we live, eat, sleep (I don't but my husband and the children do) and breathe job search. All day, every day.  So, I have come up with the top three reasons why my husband needs to find a job sooner rather than later...

1. If he asks me to edit his resume one more time, I will most definitely scream.  Not one of those little girly screams, mind you, but a full on, blood curdling scream, the likes of which horror movies are made of.  Talk about 're-arranging the chairs on the deck of the Titanic.' How many different revisions can one make on a single resume?  I think we are on #255,  but I might be off. It could be higher.  Do I know what is missing from his resume that he is not getting interviews?  Nope, because trust me, if I did, I would have added it already in revision #2.

2. My children need to feel 'normal' again meaning that they need a dad who goes out to work in the morning and comes home at night and complains about how hard he is working and what he had for lunch and all those good things.  They need to know where they are going to be living and that we can plan to do something fun in the near future and that they do not have to hear we need to 'wait until Daddy gets a job' anymore (because if I say that phrase again, I will scream the same scream I described in #1).

3. Selfishly speaking,  I. Am. Done. I am exhausted from cheerleading and revising that resume.  I have had enough 'transition-speak' to last an entire lifetime and well into the after-life. Networking?  Don't even get me started on that topic because my husband has networked with more people than a politician and still here we sit unemployed.  I don't honestly know how to try harder or what to do differently or what we are doing wrong.  What I do know is that it has gone on for far too long and it has taken my sense of humor and my patience along with it.

I would love to conclude by saying that I am hopeful things will change soon, but since I decided to 'tell it like it is' today, doing so would be a lie.  At this point, the snapshot of my life finds me frustrated, agitated and cranky and the only cure for my ills is for my husband to be employed.  How I wish there was a prescription for that.