The neighbors are out there power washing their deck.  It's noisy, but it's almost 11:30 on a Saturday morning, and really, good for them.  I, on the other hand, sit here surrounded by so many things to do that I am doing the square root of nothing, paralyzed by the overwhelming size of each task.  This is my first day off in quite a while, and it's a lovely morning.  The temptation to sit on the couch and catch up with the last season of "Desperate Housewives" is strong.  Equally strong is the desire to gather all the old magazines which are creating teetering piles, the "Oprahs" and the virginal "Writers' Digests", and drive over to my doctor's office, scattering them throughout the waiting rooms in the building. Or to take Mother's clothes out of the front hall closet and donate them to Morgan Memorial, giving us more room, and me another iota of closure.  Or to tackle the mountains of laundry, clean and otherwise, which are taking over my bedroom like some monster in a Grade D film.  At the very least I should go for a walk or cut the grass.  But plantar fasciitis is tuning up, and by the end of a five hour shift at the mall I'm walking with a cane, and I don't bloody feel like it.  So I'll set the timer on the stove and do fifteen minutes of something.  Anything.  But first I'll have my tea.  And maybe a biscuit.
The fact is, with all this lovely weather and a day to myself, I am down in the dumps.  Finally I have time to stop and think and breathe, and the Bogeyman has caught up with me.  Griefs which I thought were healing are not, and will not until I sit with them, listen to them, maybe write a poem about them, and move on.  I'm disappointed in myself that finally getting back into the work force hasn't produced the job of my dreams, but one part time job which I very much like, and one in retail, which I very  much don't.  And the excitement of re-inventing myself has become the resignation to another round of "Aw well, it's something," but I was hoping for so much more.
So it's tea and a biscuit and something for now.  Because at least that much I can still control.

I'm loving the new job (well, one of them) and the people with whom I work are committed and focused.  It's an adventure going into Boston every day for the first time in fourteen years, and it's quite nice to watch the savings account grow just a little once every two weeks.  The learning curve, however, has become a lesson in humility.  My aged brain, while amazing in its ability to remember many many new names, is showing some wear and tear when I try to figure out the accounting system.  Or to put it another way, the people in the Accounts Payable Department are wondering if I am on drugs.  There's this spreadsheet, you see, with too many columns and codes and numbers and stuff.  There was a one hour conference call with the director of AP who just couldn't take it any more and had to try to pound it into my head herself.  And then there was the royal mess I made of it, which had me feeling inadequate as I pondered it at three o'clock this morning.
If I were my own best friend (which I usually don't manage to be) I would tell myself that I've only been there six weeks, that I should cut myself some slack, that it will come.  In my more enlightened moments I realize that while people are trying to learn to walk with one leg, and others are wondering where their next meal will come from, my feelings of inadequacy are rather small potatoes.  Still, one worries:  "Is it because I'm getting old and my brain can't hold any more?"  There might be something in that.  Or it could be lack of sleep.  I'll get it.  I'll make myself get it.  But it bothers me that I make mistakes that others can see.  Wouldn't you think after six decades I would have figured out how ridiculous THAT is?

Some days it takes a Herculean act of courage just to put one foot in front of the other.  The forces of the universe just seem to conspire and almost everything that can go wrong does go wrong.  Notice I said "almost" because I don't like to challenge God.  S/He can have a quirky sense of humor when challenged.  I know it can always get worse, but could a girl catch a break here?

You know the days.  You're paralyzed with how much there is to do, so you get nothing done.  You try to hold your feet to the flame to tackle the one project against which your soul shrieks and find yourself gasping for air.  The Stress Monkey sneaks up behind you and gets you in the dreaded choke-hold until you run for the front door, car keys in hand, on the way to anywhere.  Just OUT.  I'm having one of those.

The sun is shining.  The meeting at the nursing home this morning about my mother's condition was predictable and pleasant enough.  I know what I'm cooking tonight for my in-laws.  I have a piano lesson at one.  Why do I want to scream?  Panic is setting in about finding a job at my advanced age.  I'm missing my sons with a white hot fury.  I'm surrounded by well-loved but utterly depressing women nearing the end of their lives and well past the end of their trolley tracks.  The clutter in my house is an accurate symbol of the clutter in my soul.  And I'm missing many too many friends.

It's sad not to know what you want to be when you grow up when you're over 60.  I feel all this potential and I'm terrified that if I pick the wrong thing I will blow my last chance at  finding out what I can really do and who I really am.  Writer?  Administrator?  Singer?  Speaker?  All of those and more, but how does that translate into a position someone would pay for?  So while I ponder these very serious and scary questions, and before the Stress Monkey chases me out the door again, I guess I'd better start the vacuum.  Because on days like this it's important to see that you've accomplished something.

It's always a mistake to wait until the end of the day to write.  In the  morning my intentions are so good, and the day is so full of promise.  There are a million plans waiting to be executed, each one sure to make a difference in how I feel about the world and myself.  By the time dusk starts to creep in I realize that I've blown it again.  I didn't run.  Heck, I didn't walk.  I didn't get as much laundry done and put away as I'd hoped.  I didn't send out enough resumes to find the perfect job.  The list goes on and on.

There were things I did do, of course.  I played chauffeur for my college son.  We went to visit my mother and fed her lunch to her, bite by unappetizing bite.  We went to Town Hall to get a flu shot (which apparently isn't offered until next week....I really should start reading signs), and we got Himself's car to the shop so that it no longer sounds like a Sherman tank as it zooms down the highway.  The list isn't nearly as impressive as I would like it.  There is time to get something else done, of course.  Another load of laundry, dinner, the Board of Directors meeting for my theater group.  Mostly I would like a nap, but the likelihood of that is dwindling fast.

So, like most of the human race, I fall a bit short of my target pretty much every day.  At least I still have a target most days.  And tomorrow morning, assuming I am granted another day (which most of us blithely take for granted, but I've learned better), I'll give it another shot.  Maybe that's what matters most.  That we don't just shrug our shoulders and say, "Well, that's just the way it goes," because I am not ready to settle for that.  Are you?

I could tell you I'm not sulking today, but chances are you wouldn't believe me.  You're no fool.  Rejection is not easy for anyone to deal with at any age, in any field.  Whether it's in work, love, or writing, being told that you just don't quite make the grade "stinks on toast with a twist", as my friend Maggie used to say.  I had the shopping spree planned for the new wardrobe!  And it was going to be really cute.  Sigh.  Back to the drawing board.

What is interesting and heartening is the support that has been springing up from unexpected sources.  Friends on Facebook have been wonderful, of course, but I have been getting phone calls, offers of lunch, and (my favorite) a comment on this page from someone I've never met.  People are basically very kind and caring.  Don't believe what you read in the papers (or see in the Vice Presidential debates).  The fundamental purpose of life (at least according to me) is to help one another get through the tough bits, holding hands like kindergarteners on a field trip, until we get to the end.  If somebody falls, you pick them up.  And as long as we don't all have our breakdowns on the same day, this system works pretty well.  A friend of mine who recently lost her wonderful husband much too soon, and whom I've been trying to encourage and comfort, sent me an e-mail last night that said, "You may not have 'a job' but you are certainly doing important work," and I was very moved by that .  It is more important than getting a particular job.  Still, there are those pesky tuitions that need to be paid, so I suppose I'd better stop sucking my thumb and get back to work figuring out what I want to be when I grow up ...as if!...and sending out resumes.

To all the kind people who are sending love and prayers my way, I feel them.  And when you fall down on our "field trip", I'll be there for you, too, with an outstretched hand.

When I was young and charming (well, younger than this but probably not as charming as I thought at the time) my mother had a long list of expressions which she used to guide us on the path, as it were.  "If you want a thing done, do it yourself," was a biggie.  Also, "Depend on yourself and you'll never be disappointed."  There was a theme, now that I think of it.  She often said, "Fruit is golden in the morning, silver at noon, and lead at night," which took me until I was about 17 to figure out.  The subject of today's musing, however is, "Patient waiters get good tips."

I am not waiting patiently to hear about my job interviews.  I don't actually wait patiently for much of anything.  I want to know and I want to know NOW.  When I was carrying my first child I remember buying orange juice in the supermarket and being amazed, AMAZED I tell you, that by the expiration date of that carton I would be a mother.  That juice couldn't go bad fast enough for me!  The weeks leading up to Christmas are always torture, of course.  There is no snooping allowed, nor would I want to, because the surprise is always the best part.  But it kills me.  Bananas seldom reach full maturity in my house.  So sitting here waiting for the phone to ring is not making me a happy camper.  Realistically, I should be putting out new resumes and exploring new leads, and I have every intention of doing that, but as I type I look over my shoulder at the wall phone every third sentence or so, as if that might make it ring.  Sometimes it does, but it's usually "Rachel" offering me a better rate on my credit card.  I hang up.  One does not waste time on recordings around here.

So I shall continue to wait, patiently or not, because really, what choice do we have here?  But I do find myself thinking of the cartoon with the two vultures sitting in the tree and one vulture says to the other, "Patience my ass.  I'm gonna kill something!"

One of the paybacks for the pain of childbirth, years of cramps, and mood swings is the ineffable joy that only women (well...and a few cross-dressers) experience at the end of the day when slipping out of pantyhose.  It is a bliss that dwarfs the best chocolate in the world.  This is probably one of the real reasons that people bemoan the end of summer.  The sandals go on in May and come off with a crowbar around the time chilblains are forming on the toes.  So when I needed to get "dressed like a grownup" for a job interview I had to try to remember what I had actually done with said instruments of torture at the beginning of spring.  Not one clue.  I put on the suit, the tasteful earrings with matching necklace, the heels, but my legs were bare.  And then it dawned on me.  I had read an article that the Duchess of Cambridge ("Kate" to her friends), had "revived" the trend to wear hose.  I was a little surprised since I was never aware they had gone out of style.  Just my rotten luck that I had missed the fad I'd been waiting for since I was thirteen.  And now it was over.  Or was it? 

I seemed to remember that there was a discussion about how "old fashioned" it was to wear hose and how surprising it was that the Duchess was going that route.  OK.  If it's old fashioned, maybe I could get away with being "with it" by being "without it" and not bothering.  I felt absolutely racy, but I was running short of time, so off I went.  All the way to the interview I held the debate in my head.  "Should I? What does this say about me? Does it say I'm on top of the trends or down on my luck and can't afford L'eggs? (Do they still make L'eggs?)"  This was a burning issue.  With ten minutes to spare I stopped at the grocery store and picked up a pair of Sheer Energy in nude (if you wear them, they HAVE to match your skin tone) and stuck them in my purse.  I asked the opinion of the cashier and her bag boy.  "Do people wear pantyhose anymore?"  Heads shook from side to side.  "Can I get away with this?"  "Well, what are you wearing?  Is that the outfit?  C'mere!"  I got the once over and was gratified to receive two thumbs up.

I made it to the interview in plenty of time.  I don't know if the panel noticed that I wasn't wearing hose.  They were busy watching me scramble when my telephone screamed a message from my purse that the nursing home was calling me for the second time in two years.  I tried to ignore it, but they insisted that I take it. Things went rather well, other than that, or at least I think so.  The whole day was quite an education. And by the way, have you tried to buy a slip lately?

Tomorrow I will do something I haven't done since Jimmy Carter was President of the United States.  No, not "wash the kitchen floor," although that was a good guess and I can see where you might come up with it.  I am going on a job interview.  That's right;  after sending out fifty resumes and pleading cover letters, I got a call.  Actually, I got two calls, one for next Tuesday.  The interesting thing is that they are in two completely different fields.  This is the time in life where I get to re-invent myself.

For thirteen years I've been juggling piano and violin lessons, soccer tournaments, karate classes, and basketball, not to mention the gruelling schedule of the high school musical (both my boys love the stage and they're both great).  But the nature of work has changed significantly since I left the wacky world of local television.  There is no such thing as videotape anymore.  Everything has gone digital.  I don't want to go back to television anyway.  But since I had been in "the biz" for 22 years, everything from finding leads to how to write one's resume has changed.

I took a course on interviewing.  There is a wonderful non-profit group in the Boston area called "One Life At A Time" which helps people who are re-entering the workforce to catch up with what the world has been doing while they've been elsewhere.  I re-wrote several forms of my resume, I did mock interviews which were recorded and critiqued, and I learned the culture of searching on-line for job openings.  A dear friend of mine even gave me a three-piece suit for my birthday so that I could look professional on interviews.  Luckily, it will be ready at the tailor's today.  I told you I was short.

Now all I have to do is figure out what I want to be when I grow up.  Substitute teacher?  Concierge?  Town official?  Office administrator?  Writer?  Voice Over actress?  The number of possibilities before me is almost enough to paralyze me.  Another one of the gifts from my dear friend, Flanagan, is the sudden realization that I don't have all the time in the world to live my life.  None of us knows how long he has.  So I'll dust off my sensible shoes and go see what the world has to offer me and try to make them realize that I am just the right fit for whatever it is.  Because once they meet me they have to love me...who wouldn't, right?  But it's tough to get your foot in that door.

I'm off to research the companies I'll interview with (that's very important, I'm told).  But first I think I'll go wash the kitchen floor, because you were right.  It really is time.