distraction eliminated

While staying with M, I drew up an action plan, well, action lists to find viable, enjoyable, lucrative employment.  There are even schedules and time allotments.  M asked me what I wanted to do, and I responded, "I no longer have any clue.  Seriously. I've become unglued."  Gratefully, she didn't join me in my abyss of ennui. Her solution was to come up with a list of three things I have been interested in and research and scout jobs in that area.  I created a tidy list with livable probabilities for short and long terms-- it's like a budget for my future.  It gave me a sense of control and self-efficacy.  This process has  been a class in how few areas of my life in which I have control, which is depressing and liberating.  I have no control over the applicant pool or if I'm chosen, but I do have control of where and how I apply.  My chest felt less heavy and my air passages less constricted with this plan.

Then, I received an email from this amazing school on the tip of Florida. Tropical Florida?  Flor-i-da. Ci.  I responded. We set up a phone interview.  We interviewed by phone on Friday.  I got excited.  I started to plan my amazonian life completely discarding my amazing, highly structured plan.  I received the email that I was expecting to be a list of dates I could fly down.  It was not a list of dates but a note to let me know they'd decided to pursue another candidate who was local.  The email stung, but I shot off a cheery reply, thanking him for the notice.  (Not everyone is that considerate.  A lot of people just keep you hanging.)  After marinating in the deferment of the mini-dream, I realized I'd deviated from the plan.

It's really hard for me to stay on task.  I think that is so much of the appeal of school for me: the tidy scheduling of goals (homework, quizzes, tests, papers and exams) that lead to bigger goals (degree).  For instance, it's hard for me to look for a job when I'm working another one.  I don't do well with a divided mind.  Yet, I'm easily distracted.  I can go to have coffee for a friend to chat about something specific and get completely off topic.  My friends usually end up getting me on track.  I need to work on this bad habit-- figure out how to be nonlinear in a suitable fashion and make sure it isn't some form of disengagement.

Also, it hit me: I've been putting my life on hold because I don't have the job I want.  Not just this period of unemployment, but even while I was teaching.  I knew from the point I accepted the job that I didn't want to teach there nor live there.  So, I purposely put down few roots.  I'm realizing that this is no way to live.  It's dawning on me that I'm never going to reach the day when everything's perfect and ready for me to land the ideal job, buy the ideal house, find the ideal spouse, start the ideal family.  There's always going to be something amiss if not everything amiss.  We live in a fractured, hurting world with fractured, hurting people.

Maybe that's why I've been having such a hard time in my prayer life-- my refusal to accept things the way they are, which is a tacit refusal to see God the way he is.  John Calvin firmly believed that self-knowledge and God-knowledge were deeply interwoven.  We get to see the real God by seeing our real selves.

This provocative article Catholic, Gay, and Feeling Fine may have been the catalyst for my thinking.  This paragraph near the end in particular:
So, yes, it’s hard to be gay and Catholic — it’s hard to be anything and Catholic — because I don’t always get to do what I want. Show me a religion where you always get to do what you want and I’ll show you a pretty shabby, lazy religion. Something not worth living or dying for, or even getting up in the morning for. That might be the kind of world John Lennon wanted, but John Lennon was kind of an idiot.


The "it’s hard to be anything and Catholic — because I don’t always get to do what I want" resonated with me.  He articulates the truth winsomely: we get God, and, therefore, it's a beautiful life.  So, I didn't land the Florida job, and that's okay.  I've got a plan.