I Wish I Had a River I Could Skate Away On

2009 has been the worst year of my life.

I can't wait for it to end.

Every aspect of my life feels like it has gone to shit, and I really have no idea how to fix things. I don't even know how much I can fix things as compared with how much I have to let time fix them or scrap the things I've had and try to forge something new.

The job situation is the main issue. It has been almost six months since my last day at my law firm, and I'm still a temp attorney doing document review. The fact that my project is long-term is a blessing, but it's also a curse because by the end of it, I'll be five or more years out of school with hardly any more experience than someone who just graduated (but with higher salary expectations). In other words, I have virtually no chance of going back to the level of firm I was at before, and it will be a very tough row to hoe to get in anywhere decent. So, I'm trying to come to terms with the fact that my career is over or at least changed so fundamentally that the one thing I enjoyed about it (the money) is no longer available to me. Obviously, if the only thing I liked about my career was the pay, it might be for the best that I can't be a lawyer anymore, but this is not at all how I would have chosen to leave the profession. It should have been my choice. And I don't know what I want to do instead, so I feel stuck in career limbo. I can't go backward, but I don't know how to go forward either.

The job situation has brought to my attention trouble in another area: friends. My job plight has taught me that, in general, people do not handle other people's negative emotions well. When I first found out I was losing my job, people overflowed with hugs and supportiveness. That dries up real quick. Being struck by a tragedy like this makes people see me differently. A lot of my friends look at my shitty temp job and say "at least it's better than nothing," as if that's helpful. Yes, the temp job is much better than nothing, and I am grateful to have it. But why should I have to take "better than nothing" when I went to top-ranked schools and worked my ass off so that I could have my choice of jobs? Or people are pushy about what they think I ought to be doing -- starting my own law firm (as if I want to get more deeply invested in a profession that has been so unkind to me) or turning one of my hobbies into a career (guaranteed to suck the fun out of things I actually enjoy). Or people avoid me, probably worried I'll remind them how precarious their own jobs are. Basically, no one says anything right, and, in fairness, I don't know what they could say that would be right. But most people do not have the patience to really stick by someone through a long bout of depression.

Which leads to another thing currently in a state of disrepair: my general disposition. I am not a cheery person or an optimist even in the best of times, but I have become more depressed and pessimistic than ever after this year. Due to the aforementioned inability of others to cope with long-term crankiness, I find myself constantly battling my desire to be real and honest with my friends in favor of trying to slap a smile on my face. My natural impulse when I feel any negative emotion is to isolate myself, and if I feel obligated to pretend to be happy when I'm not, that impulse becomes irresistible. But then, people start to seem offended that I haven't been spending any time with them. It's a no-win situation.

And speaking of people I don't want to spend time with, it has been a shit year for guys as well. In the spring, I thought I would surely be engaged to The New Guy by this point in the year. I had never had a guy pursue me so vigorously. He called when he said he would call, he said sweet things, he had a lot of positive qualities that I desire in a mate. And then he turned out to be a psychotic jackass and continuing a relationship with him would have ended up with my mom starting a domestic violence charity in my memory. Why did someone who started out seeming so perfect for me end up being someone I'm afraid of? Why couldn't he just have been the person he pretended to be? And what does it say about me that one of the only guys ever to pursue me (instead of merely succumbing to my pursuit of him) is someone who probably just wanted to hit me and certainly wanted to control me? And then, of course, there is Goose. I love Goose so much, and Goose just strings me along. I deleted all his emails today in a fit of pique.