Last
year, during the Beast from the East to the advent of late spring, I
participated in (and not always wholeheartedly or even willingly)
some very strange job interviews and informal chats with all manner
of companies, big and small.
Practice,
they say, practice, I'd mutter, trying to force some of that
ingenuity into me with which I had originally applied. Gusto I think
is another term, but all to no avail. The invite had either taken too
long to come about or had come about so quickly and unexpectedly I
felt ill-prepared, and even now, to this day, I'm not sure which it's
the better to be: prepared or inadequately so. Neither helped. Though
I was usually ill: anxious, but not crippled by nerves, and doubtful.
Very doubtful. As to the repercussions of this latest endeavour.
I'm
not a think later person, I worry ahead of time. Before any thing is
really mine.
However,
I am presentable, just not of the business class mould. I hate
feeling encumbered by business wear and appear, if I attempt it,
stiff and uncomfortable. More awkward than usual. How do I expect to
get anywhere if I don't adhere to that standard interview mode of
dress? Well, I'm too
old to want to get
anywhere (old (and tired) as in head, not age) i.e. up a ladder, and
on a note to that affect: if indeed there is one, balanced
precariously against the building blocks of my life, I'm going down
it. I've never been ambitious; and fidgeting, as far as my personal
view in the matter goes, doesn't win prizes. Think of a child sitting
cross-legged in assembly, squirming, distracting the headteacher's
eye. In other words, if you know you won't (and can't hope to) carry
it off with aplomb why bother? Not the right attitude, but that's
what I had (and have) to work with.
I'd
reach that point of no return: where you can't go back to doing all
that, for appearances sake and because it's what's it expected, and
yet you still need some sort of work, if not for money then for
usefulness. It was for both in my case, except I couldn't make myself
be something I'm not, nor ever was even when I tried to be; nor even
put myself in situations which would alleviate certain pressures but
bring a multitude of others. No! Those couldn't of been, and wouldn't
of been, borne. So, it was all in all a hopeless case, where there
were times, I admit, I felt more wicker basket than interesting study
for a psychiatrist, convinced as I was that I was coming across as
unhinged. My flying hands certainly testified to it, as did my
moments of inexplicable dumbness when I needed to be at my most
intelligent, or at least engaged.
It
was a weird time. One where I lurched from one prospect to the next,
not really knowing what I was seeking. It wasn't this...and it wasn't
this. Could it be this?? Maybe...no. Alternating between relief and
regret. Not getting what I wanted and getting what I didn't, and
feeling generally unmoved by any opportunity. So what! if you need
work? I know that's true, but it wasn't true of or for me. I've never
been able to do that, and no, I haven't always had that luxury. My
savings were, at that time, being steadily nibbled away, and I do
mean nibbled; the fact that I had some was due to prudence and
dealing mostly in cash, not credit or store cards.
But
then I am my own worst enemy: I don't like accepting help, nor asking
for it. This is my bed, I, in many regards, made it, or paved the way
to it, and I won't, if I asked, like your solutions, so I will lie in
this bed, the rumpled sheet smoothed, the pillows shaken and the
covers pulled over, and continue to make it, though as an ex once
said: why bother? It's like brushing your teeth, I guess, or washing
your face, a habit. I want to go to sleep in a bed that's been aired
and freshly made, so that no matter what has occurred during the day
I can at least feel comforted, and will hopefully be rewarded with a
good sleep. As well as dreams that might possibly point me in the
next, the right, direction.
That
rarely happens; everything, at night as it does by day, just gets
more warped. It did then, it still, on occasions, does now. As if my
compass, morally and ethically, is deliberately, in spite of episodic
wobbles, keeping me to a, commendable but disadvantageous, fixed
position.
Picture credit: In Bed, Frederico Zandomeneghi
Title: From Hamlet, Act I, Scene I
All posts published this year were penned during the last.
