I am not one who has ever believed in the saying that when one door shuts, another opens. I rather see it as a random game of cards – some doors close, some open, but not necessarily in a way that can help you out. Sometimes maybe they all slam shut at the same time.

Yesterday my one major client, the one providing me with my one bit of reliable income, told me they no longer needed me. It wasn’t a huge hit to the point that it affects our bills or lifestyle, as my freelancing just isn’t big enough to create that much of an impact, but it still hurts. That was our emergency money, our “fun stuff” money. And more than that it was a door shutting in my face unexpectedly. I think the unexpectedness of it is what’s really bugging me. I do not like having to deal with surprizes, but that is life.

This morning at the bank my computer was having issues and throwing some weird error message and not allowing me to do anything. I called the IT department, who then forwarded the problem along to the software company. Me, being an IT-trained and experienced person, didn’t want to just sit around waiting for someone to maybe figured it out and get back to me. So I poked around in the computer, tried clearing some cache files out and such, and voila, error fixed. I called back the IT department to tell them I had fixed it and told them what the problem was. He was rather stunned, and then impressed. That was when the guy remembered who I was and that I had mentioned I have a degree in IT. He told his boss about it, and then called me back up to tell me to send over my resume.

Now I’m not putting any weight on the idea that they’ll turn around and hire me tomorrow, because it’s a very small IT department and I don’t think they’re looking to add anyone. But the fact of the matter is that I made an impression, and they’ll have my resume on-hand when they are. I’ve been looking for a job in IT, but, as a person with the college training but little real-world experience, it is very hard to find a place to get into the field. I need to get my foot in the door, and maybe this will be it.

The thing is, regardless of why you think the doors open and close, one will eventually open. I just happened to get a reminder of that very soon after one closed, and I am thankful for that. Sometimes I just need a little encouragement – especially since I’m trying to move in a direction I haven’t before.

::

I’m going to be 27 in a couple of months and it feels like I still have so much more to learn about myself, about life. In one way that doesn’t seem surprizing, it is only 27, after all. And yet I guess I always figured by my late twenties I’d have a little bit more of a handle on my own self, that I’d feel more like an adult rather than a student still searching for her comfort zone. I had hoped to have more self-confidence, more success – maybe those go hand-in-hand.

I wish I wasn’t so afraid. You’d think after what I’ve been through that the little things wouldn’t bother me so much – and sometimes they don’t. But sometimes, often, they do. In many ways I wish I cared less, like the months after Devin died where nothing else really did matter. Our minds went into crisis mode, where everything else was insignificant out of pure self-preservation, knowing that we were already taxed to our limits dealing with the only one thing that did matter, and anything else would send us over the edge. There was a comforting peace to that numbness, in knowing so very clearly what was important in your life and that everything else could wait. But somehow over the last year it has crept back in, the anxiety and fear that stems simply from caring: caring about what people think, about what I do, about who I am, about the future. Life does keep moving, and you either have to move with it or sink. So, damnit, why does it feel like I’m still just trying to keep my head above water?

I do not like the jealous, angry, bitter pieces of me. I hate feeling upset at others’ successes… it makes me feel like a terrible person. Why can’t I just feel happy, even at a distance? The bitterness just bubbles up, congealing from little disappointments to one giant bubble of unhappiness. I know where it comes from, I know where it starts: I feel like I have failed myself in so many ways. My unhappiness is not because of others – triggered by others, but it comes from within myself. I know that, but I don’t know how to escape it, either. I don’t know how to lose the pain I carry around with me.

I miss that feeling of happiness… the feeling that you’re holding something so precious and so perfect that nothing can touch it, that it outweighs everything else.