The Signs Are All There But I Can’t Understand Your Blanking Message

Couple years ago when I graduated college I was a wreck at first. I had worked for four years done everything I thought I needed to do with nothing to show for it. I had graduated and I had no job lined up. I felt like a failure what’s the point of dumping all that money into textbooks and all the student loans if you can’t even get a job in your field of study. I can say with all honesty I filled out at least 30+ applications had a handful of phone interviews. Finally, I got a call a phone interview and an in-person interview and a job offer. I, of course, accepted the position it was a great opportunity, essentially it was everything I had hoped to attain for my first job after college. I packed up what little I had to my name and moved into a tiny apartment in a new town about a half hour from my work. I work this routine for a little over a year. Then a few months into my second year I was told the direction of the company was changing and to make a long story short my position was no longer needed. Sure I had great skills for the industry a great work ethic and I performed above and beyond and of the few employs they had, I was let go. Me being there longest and with the most experience of all full-timers, I was in a state of shock.

That’s when my mental downfall started. The kind of person I am meant I was going to over think my entire situation. This means, me thinking that this was somehow my own fault like I could have somehow stopped the direction change of the company in order to save my ass from being let go. I know that worked my ass off for that company. I gave 110% every day despite sometimes being a rookie to the tasks at hand. I did most everything from A-Z learning some things along the way. I thought I was safe working extra hard sometimes 7 days a week. Only to be blindsided by being let go. Mental meltdown, you bet several in fact over the next few days. I didn’t get the sleep I need I would lay awake head full of questions, why me? why now?. I know I couldn’t have changed my situation no matter how upset I got over it, but that wasn’t going to stop the mental bashing I was giving myself at night. I felt low for a while wondering who to put the blame on in order to bring myself back up to my usual happy state.

So at this point had already been on the job search, looking at any posting that fit the job criteria I had laid out for myself. I had quite a few phone interviews that got me close but not close enough to get hired anywhere I had applied. One day I got called for another phone interview. Then shortly after that I finally landed me an in-person interview. I was lifted up at this point thinking I was on a roll nothing could stop me both interviews seemed very promising and I thought my only way to go from there was up. Well as it turns out the phone interview that was to happen first never happened the lady I was to talk to fell ill and requested a reschedule which was fine I agreed to it and waited patiently. She never contacted me until a few weeks later she finally responded to an email, sorry for the no notice but the position had been filled by someone that they had previously picked. I was left usual keep checking our company site for future openings with our company we will keep you in mind. Sure they would keep just like it took weeks to tell me they hired someone and did want to still interview me. The in-person interview happened and I felt great about it despite goofing up on the time not realizing I was two hours behind them and subsequently late. They agreed to interview me still realizing that could have told me about the time change just as easily. I really left the facility thinking I had nailed the interview giving them my best. I was told to wait two weeks the time it would take for them to decide and get back to their candidates. So I waited two weeks only to receive an email stating my effort had been in vain my four-hour car ride to the interview had not been worth my trouble because they had ultimately decided not to fill the position. They hadn’t sent their message in one of those generic “we are sorry if we inconvenienced you but…”. I was fuming a little mad because for the first time I had been feeling good about things that I was on the right track finally headed somewhere. It really crushed me mentally to distinct rejections in a row at least that’s how I saw it. I tried not to let my mental breakdowns show but knowing my mother I wasn’t fooling her because she always seems to know everything as most mothers appear to do so.

Amongst all my mental frustration wanting to give up on the career path I had chosen, little signs reminders began to show up in my life. In one instance I was out visiting my grandmother one day in my hometown she lives on the family farm. That day we were returning from an afternoon outing when driving down the road close to the farm we passed by a green jeep. Now at this point, the common person would say so what a jeep passed you there are lots of jeeps out there. True there are lots of jeeps, but I used to live in this area and I knew it instantly. The jeep belonged to my former high school biology teacher we used to deliver hay to her father for his horses so I could never forget her Jeep. The real significance of this sighting is my career choice. I chose to work with plants as an adult because of this particular teacher. She helped me to gain a better understanding of plants and learn to love plants as much as I do. This all happened on a particular day that I was feeling down about not landing a new job yet and thought some time away from the job hunt would help. Now my deduction has been that I needed a reminder of why I chose the career path I did but I also think it was just a coincidence since it was after school had been let go and she routinely headed home. Then a couple weeks later I was in that same town having lunch with my father at local DQ when it happened again. This time I ran into a group of 3rd-grade teachers from my former grade school. One important one who was my 2nd-grade student teacher who later became a 3rd-grade teacher. I say important because at the time I had this teacher I had just been diagnosed as having ADD; meaning myself and the idea of learning didn’t really get along or at least that’s how I would describe it now. This particular teacher I will never forget because my desire to learn more; kind of stemmed from having said teacher. She made learning fun for me she even had as I remember it a gorilla that used to tell us stories. Now seeing this teacher reminded me that I once liked learning, or so I think because the signs are lining up but I don’t blanking understand them. I was starting to wonder if there was a pattern to this whole seeing my former teachers’ thing after all my number was at two and could only go up from there. A few days later like it was a scheduled meeting on my calendar I saw third former and very influential teacher of my past. This time it was my junior college speech class teacher. She has a very stand out figure even though I only knew her for one short summer semester. Her class was where I learned to be outgoing. I went into the semester a deep-rooted introvert and with this teacher’s guidance slowly became a little more outgoing and communicative. When I was forced to speak in front of the class it got me outside my comfort zone and prepared me with skills I could use at a job. Yet again I wasn’t sure about why this occurrence, why now did I see this person. I guess maybe it was to remind I can talk to people show them what I can do when it comes to obtaining a job. But as I stated I’m not sure why I saw this person on that particular day.

I won’t say I am a super religious but I do go to church on Sundays when I can make it. So, of course, my thoughts were God was trying to tell me something about the next part of my journey he had planned for me. But at the same time, I was thinking what the BLANK does this all stuff mean to me. See I am at a point where I need to go up from being down and from what I learned in the church God is the way up right? At this point I am feeling stuck and going to church on Sunday so far doesn’t feel like it’s getting me any closer to a job. But my not blanking understanding of the signs given to me is clouding my ability to see that it really is getting me closer to finding a job. Maybe I just need to blanking relax keep filling out applications and hope for the best.