To answer everyone's questions: I'm letting the cards fall as they will.

For the past 234 days, I have been waiting for my future to start. I have been searching for alternatives to a full-time job. I have been living with my parents. I have been mopping the floors and cleaning the bathrooms at a local coffee shop just to pay the bills. I have been doubting the use of a college education. I have been imagining alternatives involving Caribbean waters, boats and far away destinations. I have been waiting. I have been wondering. I have been doubtful. I have been scared.

When I began searching for jobs, I applied only to those that I absolutely wanted. I applied to the dream jobs. After about two months, I widened my pool. After four months, I widened it a little bit more. After five, I took a food services job and widened my pool more. After six, I began applying to all administrative jobs I could find. After seven, I began applying to volunteer positions with Americorps and PeaceCorps. At this point I have probably applied to over 500 jobs, many of which I am extremely overqualified for.

Last week, I received a variety of different phone calls/emails. Americorps, the Arts Council of the Twin Counties, Clinton Arts Council, and a previous job re post all wanted to schedule interviews with me to discuss positions I had previously applied to. I was swamped with my job at FPC, working 8-4 shifts, managing to present a happy facade as I fueled my body with caffeine. The heat was unbearable for many days at a time. My emotions strung out on the perpetual ambiguity in my life. The phrase "imagine this" was engraved in the back of my mind and haunted my thoughts. I stopped dreaming and felt lonely by the lack of visitation by my new found skeletal friend. One night, I barely slept.

I ignored a few of the messages from potential job possibilities, knowing that they could be the perfect job for me if only they were in different geological locations. I concentrated on figuring out what I needed to do with the re posted job. The job that 3 months earlier I became the runner-up applicant. The job that I was denied because I didn't have the same experience as the other applicant, who they hired and who now is leaving.

In the midst of all this, I get a phone call: "Hello Dana. This is so and so from the Department of so and so. Please give me a call back." I replay the message and realize this is the person I interviewed with in late June for an Assistant Position. I give him a quick call back. I have a feeling as I place the phone call. I think to myself, he is going to offer me the position. Do I want it?

Finally, after 234 days, something is happening. Things are changing. Jobs are being offered. I am finally imagining something other than this.

I find the timing ironic. With the completion of Americorps applications and references requested and completed, and finally after many, many personal pep talks and self-motivational speeches, that I will no longer need. I just recently found myself no longer scared at facing the blank canvas of my future, about mapping it out, drawing the lines, and filling them in all on my own. Ironically enough, it no longer mattered.

I take the job, I let the cards fall as they will. I still write my many confessions.

Apparently, emails that simply say "you should be hearing something soon" are good things.