hollow man

I've been lost inside my head
Echoes fall off me 
  

I'm overwhelmed
I'm on repeat
I'm emptied out
I'm incomplete
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You know when you watch clothes in the dryer and they spin around and around and sometimes they’re all comfy spinning against the outside—still going in circles, but in a familiar pattern and a little more secure--then sometimes they fall out of sync and topple around before getting pulled out again by centrifugal force?

That has been my life the past few weeks. I went from thinking I had a new job that would get me into a new field, and get me away from dealing with people and their problems. It had been a nice thought, and I’d become accustomed to the idea that I was getting out of social work and starting over again in a new city. I tolerated the weeks of uncertainty because all the feedback that I got indicated it would be happening; it was just a matter of when. I had been applying to jobs locally in my field as well, just as backup, but I didn’t really want any of the jobs I applied for.

Then last Wednesday I got a call from a recruiter. The next day I had a phone interview, and the day after that an in person interview. The job would pay well and was in the city, which would cut out my commute (which has been sucking the life out of me) so I went on the interview. I did not think it went well. I spent the weekend stressed over the lack of communication from the job I wanted, and the fact that now if that fell through, I likely didn’t have a backup job because the interview was very close to disaster (including my resume that printed out with track changes and comments on it). Monday morning I got a call from the recruiter offering me the job.

So now I have a job. I don’t really want the job, but I’m supposed to be happy about. Everyone else is excited about it and trying to make me happy about it. I’m relieved that I have the job, and I’m happy about the lack of commute (one bus) and getting to work only weekdays again. But I had the past six weeks to prepare for a brand to new start to my life, a plan full of hope and the opportunities to learn new things and make my way in a new direction. Now I’m back in that dryer, spinning around, headed to a job that is similar to what I’m doing now, and although I’m sure their will be growth and opportunity there as well, it all happened so fast that I’m having trouble processing everything. So now, I feel like I’m having to grieve the loss of that other future and pretend (at other’s insistence) to be happy about a job that I never really wanted.

On top of all that, I don’t really have any closure with the job that I wanted because the man just stopped communicating with me altogether, so I don’t know what happened.  There is the chance that he could still contact me and that job would be an option again, which would throw everything into upheaval. So I think I’m also trying to prevent myself from getting excited about the job I have because I at any moment I could fall out of this new pattern just like the clothes in the dryer and start to tumble around again.  I'm overwhelmed, I'm on repeat, I'm emptied out, I'm incomplete…