Decisions, Decisions
Now that I have been back home for almost exactly two weeks, I find myself in the land of in-betweens, which is mixed with the possibility that anything can happen now that nothing in the immediate future is settled (aside from my decision to start massage therapy school) and the fears of all the worst possible scenarios.
I'm looking for a part-time job that I could do while in school. I have interviewed for a job that I feel a bit ambivalent about. Though it requires a masters level counseling, social work, or psychology degree, it is not a clinical kind of job per se. I like the fact that it is not too far away and that it would keep my foot in the door of the Deaf community and it is, in fact, a part time position. My fear, though, is that much like most human service non-clinical positions, there will be a lot of work that I don't particularly enjoy that will take a lot of time and energy and ultimately, I'll end up too exhausted and burned out to do anything else.
K and I have talked a lot about what this year will mean for us. We view it as a transitional year, of sorts, where we will be transitioning from being tied down to each of us having single jobs and single sources of income as dependant employees of the proverbial "man" to having several sources of income, many of which are not tied down to any one place or employer. The only problem with these sources of income is that a) they will require some investment- time, money, energy and b) they will take some time to really get going. For example, for me: working as a yoga teacher, finding ways to sell my art or sell prints of my art, working as a fee-for-service clinician and eventually, working as a massage therapist. For K there's a wine import business that's been in progress for some time and is currently stalled because the Euro is so high (or is the dollar just low?) and then there's the hundreds and thousands of other little income ideas such as selling the basil we are growing in our kitchen at the South End market this summer.
Here is my dilemma: I could get some neighborhood job like waitressing at a caffe or working in a plant store, which most likely would not pay very well but would be enough for us to get by. I imagine that it would also allow me to have the emotional energy to really focus on my art and seeking out yoga teaching opportunities- paid oor voluntary as right now building up some experience is imperative. It would also give me some income until a part-time or per-diem therapist position that I actually want to do comes along. However, if the income is only enough to get buy but not enough to invest in ordering prints to sell and art materials, then what good does has it done in terms of truly allowing me any flexibility?
K and I talked about it pretty extensively last night and I realized that I'm consumed by the fear of making the wrong choice. When it comes down to it, if taking this un-clinical job in Deaf services would be the best thing for me- for us- in the long run, then that's what I want to do. Or, if taking care of plants allows me the emotional energy to create more work and that is the best thing to do, then I'll do that. I just don't know.
How many decisions have I made in my past that have completely altered the direction of my life. Choosing to go to Gallaudet for grad school, for example, or taking the job in Boston when I really wanted to stay in New York because I so badly needed the job. I feel in some ways, this decision could possibly be equally altering. So, I'm having such difficulty facing all of it that I haven't actively pursued anything. I have applied to several different places out of a sense of obligation toward our financial situation, have had one interview and will be interviewing at a recruiter's office next week where they will be doing the job-hunting for me (I never knew there were recruiters for mental health related jobs but apparently, there are such agencies for pretty much any profession). I'm also applying at a plant store and will be talking to the owners of the yoga studio that I attend not only about being put on the yoga teacher sub list but also, working in their yoga clothes and supplies store a few hours a week.
In the meantime I've:
watched most of the first season of the L word on DVD
read Jane Austen's Persuasion and Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld
cooked some elaborate meals
taken naps with the cat on the couch
done some significant amount of blogging (albeit mostly of a retrospective nature)
taken long showers
had friends over
gone to the yoga studio almost daily
met friends for coffee
had long skype or phone conversations with friends and family
encouraged a cold to hurry up and run its course from my throat, down into my lungs, and up into my sinuses