I got my hair cut this morning. Another time I will ponder the merits of spending 3+ hours at a salon school because the cost of the cut and the color is significantly less than what I would pay at a “real” salon — right now I deal with it because I am unemployed and so, you know, 1) this is the most cost-effective way of maintaining my coif and 2) it’s not like I have anywhere I need to be.
Anyway. So I’m waiting for my student to appear, and I’m nose-deep in my book (The Happiness Project. There’s another post in here somewhere about how I normally avoid the Eat, Pray, Love types of books, but I was intrigued by this one, and it’s unputdownable. It’s also nothing like Eat, Pray, Love) when another woman comes up and hangs up her red coat, says something about how we’re the Red Coat Contingent, and I say something about how I like that the red doesn’t show cat hair nearly as much as my old black coat, and we share a chuckle, and I go back to my book.
But it’s apparent that she wants to keep talking, and at first I think “I just want to read my book,” but then I think, “There’s no harm, no wasted energy in being pleasant, and the book will be there later.” So we’re chatting, and in the course of conversation I mention that I am unemployed. It wasn’t like she asked “Is it supposed to snow this weekend?” and I answered “I don’t have a job.” This was more, “So did you take off from work to get here?” with me all, “What is this ‘work’?” She’s sympathetic, asks what kind of job I’m looking for, and I give the same confused answer that I give everyone because honestly, I still don’t know. I know what I could be doing. But do I want to be doing that? At this point, I’m not even sure that’s the question I need to be asking, when most days I feel like any old job would be better than this (although I still secretly like having my days to myself). And I know what I want to be doing, but I’m still working through my own hang ups that are attached to that desire. You know, like feeling guilty for daring to want to do what I love doing. And feeling paralyzingly scared that I will fail spectacularly. Please tell me you know of these things.
I tell her that I write, that I edit, and that more recently I’ve been managing editor/producer for a couple websites. She asks if I’ve thought about grant writing. Funny — I have thought about grant writing, but only abstractly. “Oh yeah, grant writing. I could look into that, maybe.” And then I don’t. I tell her this, and she rattles off a number of websites to visit that are related to her particular field, which happens to be higher education (right now I’m having a coincidence/fate moment). And she gives me her card. I certainly don’t think that anything specific (like a job) will come of this (at least not in a bing-bang-boom sort of way), but I think I’m right in recognizing it as A Potential Point of Origin.
People are good.
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