Gilberto Gil - "Sandra"

I am unemployed. This is the first time I have been in this position in at least five years. In the recent past, I have left one job for another for another. The future has always been a bit more known over the past several years. I forgot how stressful and terrifying it can be to not know what your next job will be, whether anyone will hire you, how long that will take, and all while you have little money in your bank account.

I am being positive about it because I do think there is something to that, to manifesting the life you believe you will get, that life sometimes is just a game of confidence. Perhaps a more apt analogy is that it is a game of chicken. Whichever. Hold the wheel steady, look straight ahead, and floor it. The future is what you make of it.

On Thursday, I said goodbye to the people I interned with this summer. I tried not to cry. I could feel it coming, that quivering bottom lip. I made my goodbyes quick. Out on the street, it hit me that I had nowhere to go the next day, no job lined up, no clue what I would be doing. My eyes started watering and I held back tears as I walked through midtown crowds. I wasn't sure if I was sad about likely never seeing some of those fellow interns again who I had become so close to or whether it was some terror of what my future might be, or more likely some combination of the two of those.

I swam in the ocean yesterday. I floated on my back, feeling free and unencumbered by the concerns of land. I rode waves in and then swam back out because that's where I wanted to be, in the weightless depths of the Atlantic, bobbing around, hopping over waves and feeling some satisfaction in how well I could do so, obstacles nothing, easily overcome, dove under, jumped over, and ridden on top of to the shore.

Tuesday, there is a recruiter fair that I am going to and hopefully I will hear good new from an agency this week. There is the waiting for the waves to come. I want to ride them. What scares me are those moments when there aren't many waves, when you are in the water just waiting and waiting for one to come. I like the action, the movement, the reaction, the decision about how to approach each wave. I've got my fingers crossed and my swimsuit on. I am looking away from the shore.