Searching

I have lived in Virginia for two months but I have yet to find a job. It is easy to blame it on the economy, but in reality, I haven't been looking. Of the two months I've lived here, I spent two weeks in Los Angeles, and over a week in Kentucky. I like to use this as an excuse as to why I'm not job hunting. I call it "getting settled."

But the truth is I was "settled" a long time ago. So basically I have all day long to do whatever it is that I want. It was fun at first, but now it's becoming monotonous and depressing. Of course, this triggers my eating disorder. Why eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner when there is no one around to make sure it is happening? Though I am eating anyway, the temptation not to is louder than it has been in some time simply because I know that for the first time in a long time, I could pull it off. But I don't. I try to keep busy and to occupy my mind with other things. I spend my days writing, reading, editing my work, working out. But I realized today that for the last two or three weeks, apart from taking out the trash, checking the mail, and going to the gym (which is almost literally across the street from my apartment) I barely leave the apartment at all. And when I do leave it, I can't wait to get back to it. Is it because I don't know anyone or anything in this city? If so, I'm never going to meet anyone or discover anything sitting at home.

My eating disorder tells me I don't need to go anywhere. It has me where it wants me: sitting here all alone vulnerable and unsure. I can't listen. I have to put in more job applications. I have to leave the apartment for more than an hour at a time, even if it is to do nothing but sit in the grass and read. Too much time alone means too much of an opportunity for the old, familiar wounds to open up again. I've come too far for that.

Tomorrow I'm getting a haircut.

I'm going to the coffee shop to work on some writing and editing. Even though I hate working there because it's so noisy, I have to get out of this place.

And I'm resuming the job hunt.

The question is just what exactly I'm qualified to do. No one in this town wants to hire a writer. Anyone who does wants me to work for free. And everyone else doesn't seem to care that I have a Bachelor's Degree or that I'll have a Master's in December. I am a glorified waitress, per my resume. That seems to be the only position I can land.

There has to be something else.