I got a job lead for a part-time position at some small, independent production company, and I was so excited over it (read: anxious) that I whipped off a cover and resume immediately, which was around 8:30 a.m. on Friday. By Saturday afternoon I had a rejection email in my inbox, and the tone of it was quite snarky, so I inquired for more details, and I was told in an even snarkier tone that I'd spelled her company name wrong, therefore it was rushed and I had no attention to detail.
I made the classic, #1 FUCK UP in a job search. This brought me to tears - how stupid can I be? But the truth is, it WAS rushed, because I constantly feel this burning urgency, born of fear, that if I don't jump on every lead RIGHT NOW, I'm going to lose everything and get nowhere. This kind of anxiety results in skipping through the details. And how many other letters did I send out with mistakes? Maybe none, maybe all. I don't even want to think about it.
Since I landed here 2.5 weeks ago, I've felt the urgency of getting "in." I haven't been able to relax, though I have done some fun things (like seeing the Independent Shakespeare Company's production of Hamlet last night - brilliant). My brain is constantly chewing at the problem of HOW DO I GET A JOB HERE? Yes, there are jobs, and there are leads, and I do have contacts, but even so, I still feel paralyzed in a very deep place. This has got to change if I'm to make anything of myself here.
In some ways, I feel like I'm 23 again, just out of college. I guess in a way that's the point of this. I'm trying to let this be a lesson learned with the small potatoes,
so that I won't repeat the mistake when there's a bigger opportunity. Moving forward, my strategy will now be that I don't apply for jobs in the morning. Make sure I'm fully awake and alert before writing cover letters. Also, I will not send out same-day cover letters. In other words, I'll write a letter on a Monday afternoon and check it over on Tuesday afternoon before sending it out. This adds a lot more time and energy to the process, but if it means not fucking up good opportunities, it's worth it.And I think I gotta get back to some of the self-care I was doing before I left Ithaca. I'm going to need more support, and by that I don't mean platitudes. I mean Acupuncture and Reiki and Yoga and the things I was doing before that really helped. This is real, and while I can't let myself become a total slacker, I need to find ways to relax into my new life here. Banging my head on the keyboard at 8:30 in the morning applying for jobs clearly isn't cutting it. (Yes, I recognize the irony of this paragraph: that I'm even being hard on myself about having to relax. I am Elsie's daughter.)
