What’s My Next Step?

The Universe is trying to tell me something and I’m pretty sure I know what part of the message is. In the past year my life has turned completely around. I’ve gone from being a professional with a really decent income and a secure job to unemployed and, apparently, unemployable.

After sending in hundreds of applications and a couple of hundred interviews I have yet to be offered a full-time job. O sure, I’ve gotten the odd temp job and I was even offered a long-term temp job – one that would never be permanent and paid much less than what I was used to making. I turned that one down and boy am I eating crow over it now.

I’ve talked to a couple of spiritual advisors, a psychic, had my chart done and had a couple of Tarot readings. They all give me the same message, there have been some really bad things going on in my life lately but they are about to turn around and very good things are about to happen for me.

I’ve talked to a dozen employment agents and they all love my resume, love my experience, love my skills and they really think they can market me for some serious money.

So far, those very good things have not materialized and those employment agents have not found anyone interested in my talents and skills.

I have stumbled on to some fairly decent freelance writing gigs and I’ve made a few bucks at that with the promise of more to come. But frankly, they don’t pay all that well and I just don’t write fast enough to make a living at it. I suppose I’ll get faster with more experience but I just don’t see a real secure future from that direction.

My mother, who is getting on in years, would like me to sell my house and come live with her. It won’t be too many years before she’ll need some help and I could be there to help her. I would be able to cut my living expenses way down and the money I make from the freelance writing might be enough to give me a fairly good income. I might even be able to pay off the astronomical credit card bills I’ve been running up.

Mom has a great house. I’d be very comfortable. But she lives in a town that I just hate. A small podunk town with no jobs and no opportunity for me to do anything but work for minimum wage if the freelance work doesn’t pan out. And I’m just not ready to go back to living with my mother.

Jeez! I’m 50 something years old. I’m too damned old to move back in with mommy. I’m too set in my ways. I’ve lived alone for 15 years and I like it. I really, really like it. I have my own way of doing things. I don’t talk in the mornings – at all. I drink my coffee and I smoke my cigarettes and I just don’t talk. Mom wakes up talking and she doesn’t stop till she falls asleep that night. And she asks questions – she expects answers. She doesn’t smoke and she doesn’t want anyone smoking in her house. Her house – not my house.

Well, there’s my answer, isn’t it. It would be easy. It would be safe. But it wouldn’t be my space. It would always be her space. I’d be reverting back to childhood. Under her control. I’d be giving up control of my own life.

So, the Universe is telling me it’s time for a change. I still don’t know what kind of change – what direction I should go. But I have figured out one direction that I should not go.