An open letter to those who love me

I’m writing this letter to make the completely unreasonable, possibly insensitive, and most likely ungrateful request that you please, all of you, not ask me about my job search.

To be me right now is to be someone who is sad most of the time. Someone who is irritable and disheartened and often demoralized and yes, someone who is avoiding you. It is difficult to be my age and to be living where I am and be looking for work. In fact, it is often heartbreaking. It does not feel good to be 27 and to be claimed as a dependent on someone else’s tax return. It feels even worse to let other people know that.

What I want to do in this letter, in the nicest way I can think of, is to ask you to back off. There is no news on the job hunt. Obviously. Do you not think I would send out the message if there was? If it were up to me, and I would like to think that it is, no one would know if I’ve interviewed or how they have gone until I have accepted a job. The one interview I had was for the job I went to graduate school to get. And I didn’t get it. And I don’t want to tell you that. It was a tough blow and it set me back and I am trying hard to claw myself back to happy and I can’t if I have to keep telling you how things are not going for me.

Odds are, I’m not doing this the way you would. Well, I’m not and I don’t want to have to defend the fact that I’m not temping or that I’m not doing whatever it is you think I should be doing. And I know that you are not trying to put me on the defensive but you need to know that that is where I already am. I know about temping and I know about asking people who work where I want to work and I promise that I know whatever aspect of the job hunting process you are thinking of bringing up to me. I know and I don’t want to talk to you about this.

And I am sorry. I’m sorry that I’m so unwilling to accept your advice or to answer your questions but that is how I feel right now. I know that I am often being unreasonable and that my temper is too close to the surface and that it is rude of me to blow off your questions and I’m sorry.

But the thing is, you can’t be enjoying this either. It can’t be fun for you to sit through the awkward conversations we keep having about how nothing has happened yet. I know I don’t enjoy them. There’s so much other stuff we can talk about. Let’s talk about shoes or the news or the fact that I’ve started writing again or even my sad sad love life. Even better, let’s talk about you! I love you people and frankly, I could use the distraction.

Now, this letter was sparked by the fact that one person in my life, I think, is enjoying on some level that this is where I am. This is difficult to deal with and I’m still not sure how I will. The rest of you I know have good intentions and have genuine love and concern for me. I’m asking you now to back off because I don’t want to start feeling about you the way I feel about this person. They have me fairly riled up and I admit my emotions are a little uncontrolled and it wouldn’t take much for me to take out my anger with them on one of you and this cannot happen. So please, for your own sake, believe this letter.

What I am doing now is trying. I’m trying to find a job and I’m trying to be happy (how’s that for a hint about the title of this blog, huh?) and I need you to let me alone, in this one area, to do that. I have every confidence that I will get a job and that I will love it and that things will look up. I know that it will happen. And I need you to know that too. And until then, please, with kindness and much love…shut up.