I want more.

It has become ever more apparent in these hard economic times, that the hope for getting a real, full-time, legit job (or, let’s face it- a job of any sort, in general) is almost beyond hope.   For me, there are only so many times that I can send my resume, call and keep touch, edit resume, get advice and repeat the cycle before jobless depression begins.

I have been unemployed since May, when we moved to the Nashville area and I had to leave the television station that for 3 years i called my employer.  This was a nice change of pace after working 30 hours there, 16-18 hours a week at an internship, a full schedule at college and homework.  After we moved, I got to play 50’s housewife and set up house and plan our wedding.  I wanted a job, but we were getting married in September, so it wasn’t top-priority.  Then after the wedding and the honeymoon, shortly came homecoming.  We went back to our alma mater to see old friends and celebrate Halloween.  Then planning for the holidays began.  So for much of 2008, I was searching for a job, but I was also occupied with upcoming events.

Now here we are, student loans are coming in.  No real events or holidays that need massive planning in site.  Money is needed.  So I sucked it up and applied for a cute boutique down the road, thinking, worst case scenario they might think I was over qualified.  No phone call.  I call them, they sound excited and tell me they’d call me.  And just like the new movie about to be released, I feel like they are saying “We’re just not that into you.”  I feel like I am trying to get a date with any employer and they are ALL replying, “sorry, you’re not our type.”

So what’s a girl to do?  I have no friends in this new city to chit-chat and visit with.  I sit in our 1000 square foot apartment everyday.  And I can basically repeat the entire Lifetime Network daily schedule in its entirety on demand.  My exciting hopes and dreams seem to be drifting farther way and I find myself asking, is this it?

I fear that if I don’t get a job soon, my resume will become tainted and people will not call me because they wonder, “Why hasn’t she gotten a job, yet?  Is there something wrong with her?”  When in actuality, no one has even given me a face-to-face interview.

I’m becoming desperate.  So desperate and so boring that I have to admit, I have debated in my head the worst possible scenario to take away my boredom.  No, not death…pregnancy.  I know it would only make things tighter and more complicated and by even thinking that it could be a solution for my boredom shows how much I am NOT ready for such a situation.  But again I ask, what’s a girl to do?

I can’t drive my car right now (no car insurance as of October, but hopefully soon!) and besides that, where would I go?  I feel like an idiot, thinking I could be the next Candance Bushnell or Project Runway contestant with no sewing experience.

I need to feel like my existance matters.  Not that I am only here to cook, clean, do laundry and make sure that someone is watching Desperate Housewives, Grey’s Anatomy, Project Runway, etc.

I want to work.  I want to contribute.  I want a job.  I know it sounds pathetic, but it is how I feel.  All through out college, I dreamed of the day I wouldn’t have to work and could be a housewife.  But now I see that I need more.  Not want, need.  No amount of kitchen accessories, fine china and bedroom suits can change this fact.  Now I know how it feels to be a housewife and feel under-valued, under-unitilized, under-appreciated.  And when the husband you love doesn’t come home until 7 (because you need the money), eats and begins to pass out on the couch before 10 p.m., you find yourself wondering, “Is this how my life is going to be for the rest of my life?”

Dammit, I am 22 years old.  This is the prime of my life.  I had fantasies of us traveling the world, staying in beautiful hotels, drinking fine wine and having amazing sex at least until we were 30 and decided to begin a family.  Now I contemplate whether those things will ever happen.

Like the Little Mermaid, I want more.  I want to live and work and make exciting memories.  I don’t want all of my memories to be us sitting on the couch watching Bravo.

I don’t know how to finish this, other than say that I hope something more is around the corner.  That the happiness I was so anxious to get isn’t too far away and that the monotony that is my life doesn’t last too much longer.  I want more.

Insert inspiring song lyric here

Blogging.  Like pomegranates, blogging is something I have tried to fool myself into loving for years.  Every time some one suggested a pomegranate martini I always replied with an overzealous “Yeah!”  Much to my dismay, my lips always felt disappointment when they touched that wide-rimmed glass.  A grimace always overcomes my excitement and I am once-again forced to fake the love and drink it all before my tongue knows what hit it.

It’s like a twenty-something who marries some guy that looks like Leslie Nielsen for the money.  Each night when she bends over to keep the peace, she fakes the smiles and moans while thinking of Cartier and Dior.   She thinks to herself that if she keeps doing it, she will eventually learn to like it.  Actually, that might be true for the Gold Digger and her Sugar Daddy.  Given the right pointers, toys and costumes, she might eventually have fun.

For me, however, there’s nothing pomegranates can do to change my mind.  To me, they taste like the cheap waxy lipstick you played with as a child.  They never change, even when you put in the effort to add chocolate or blueberries or Diddy’s own Ciroc vodka.  Nothing can help these “fruits,” if that’s what you want to call them.

That’s a lot like I have felt about blogging.  But as they say, desperate times call for desperate measures.  So what’s a lonely journalism gal to do.  For now, I grimace but let’s hope as the days go on and this unemployment continues, I learn to suck it up like Gretchen on The Real Housewives of Orange County, and wind up having a little fun.