Prepare to qualify

The date's been set. As of Saturday I'll be in Illinois on my way to Chicago. Though the road trip could be done in a day, nine hours of driving is a bit much. Plus, sadly, I'm looking forward to my night alone in a roadside hotel. I just want some time to be alone for a bit and just enjoy the progress I've made.

I'll arrive in Chicago on Sunday, exactly three months after leaving my sentence with the Peace Corps. I miss friends, but... not the experience. It's hard to believe it's been three months. It's hard to believe I've lived with my mom that long and haven't been committed. I've gone through quite a bit since leaving. Most of it has been mental and emotional processing. Like with all moves, you need to spend the time sorting what comes along and what gets ditched. I've inherited a new father, or learned that my 'real' one is not who I thought; become an aunt for the fourth time; learned that I'll be one for the fifth time in the fall; waded through the mounds of paperwork that American life produces (still having more to do); caught up with a few friends... It's hard to think that it took three months. My family has a knack for making emergencies, or at least urgencies. It seems like I've been in one since I arrived. Everything must be done right away, although at the end of the day I'm never sure what's been done. My family is the Black Hole of Time.

I'm leaving here soon, as much because it's just time to move on as because I need to once again break from the cycle of victimization that people here live in and because... I'm restless. I need a new challenges and new people and new explorations and room to grow. Things that aren't here. I'm feeling both calm and frayed by my choice of moves. I know Chicago is the right lifestyle city for me, but I keep coming up with blanks about jobs... I feel like a career is still out of reach. I keep getting signs large and small that DC would be a more 'rational' choice. Connections... schooling... experience. I just can't picture a life there among the cube dwellers longing for a U-shaped desk and a door. Among the people who think they were destined to rule with theories and Blackberries from a distance. Among people who think they are RIGHT. When I see DC in my head, I see all the is wrong with America. Perhaps I just have a problem with authority.

One thing I wanted to do before I left KC, both to close this blog and to give closure to my experience with Peace Corps, was to write a final commentary on it all. I still have yet to do that, and I need to. There's so much there - so much that I think and feel about the whole experience. The writer and humanist in me has tons to say, but the consultant/policy wonk in me has just as much. It's all tangled. I have pages of notes that I need some peace to sort through. Perhaps it'll be my Holiday Inn fun. Perhaps I should stay more than one night. I could use it. Just to be calm and alone. Is it lame to vacation in a rural interstate hotel? Maybe I could move in and manage it... probably not qualified though.

Safety first!

I resubmitted my resume to the online job banks today, lowering some numbers a bit and changing some wording. Oddly, I'm now getting responses that refer to me as an 'executive' when before I seemed to be destined to sell insurance. The whole thing makes me laugh a bit - how driven by efficiency we Americans are that we actually tend to bypass quality. The responses are clearly based on searches for a phrase that I magically managed to include. Now recruiters, having found my resume in one database, want me to add my name to theirs. But... haven't they already found my resume? Entering my information into databases could take months if I let it, but I just won't. Doesn't anyone actually look at things any more? Actually read them? I'm beginning to think not.

I took a day off from being unemployed (much less glam than it sounds and largely involving, um, databases) and went to a bookstore, for Mediterranean food and for coffee at my favorite coffeehouse anywhere (it was such an escape when I was a wee grrrl and always takes me back there). In any case, in my browsing I went to the business section and, again, was amazed by the lack of actual reality people produce. The books were largely based on marketing or managing... either a product or yourself as a product. It was dumbfounding. It may be possible that I am no longer fit for Western society. I want to start asking people what they do, but pressuring them until I get a real answer. I'm assuming this is not the best way to make friends and isn't included in the networking strategy books.

A family member was let go from her job - the only one she's ever had, and one that someone else got for her to boot. She's paranoid about it and what losses it might mean - primarily a loss of security. Perhaps I'm just so used to being knocked off track that it doesn't phase me any longer. I just remember entering each unexpected turn with fear in my eye, but coming out of it with a deep sigh of relief. It's frustrating to embrace change in a world constantly asking what effect my decisions (staying unemployed for a couple months, leaving Peace Corps, etc) will have in the long term. It just seems like they were decisions that needed to be made without knowing the absolute outcome... without controlling it and playing it safe. Safe enough to bore one to tears.

I remember first getting to Bulgaria and thinking about all the lack of rails and safety precautions - it was rather horrifying. Now, I look at all the American attempts to keep fear and danger and the unexpected at bay and am horrified. People protecting their children from any harm or real life experience whatsoever. 'My child won't struggle.' 'I don't want to have to worry about what will happen if I do/don't..." It seems like we are a nation paralyzed with fear. We distribute and market and criticize and drive ourselves mad with the pursuit of perfection, but miss the overall quality factor every time. Ever the eavesdropper, I heard two women having a fierce debate about the perfect... mascara. There are times I am glad a ballbat isn't nearby. I'd soon be writing this about prison life. But, well, at least that'd be better than selling insurance.