Life Does

Life is just doing its thing around here. Younger Son goes back to school tomorrow, Older Son is deeply involved in Civil Air Patrol activities, Oldest Son got a new apartment, the KH got some good news that is easing a little bit of stress we've been experiencing, and I am engaged in my first job hunt in more than 15 years.

I have an almost pathological aversion to looking for work. It's not that I'm not qualified for anything, or that I dread interviews, or that I don't know how to talk to people. Quite the opposite, in fact. It just seems like such a mountain to climb, trying to communicate who you are and what you can do in a couple of pages of resume, a brief chat on the phone, or a morning sitting across a desk from a total stranger. It's usually exhausting, often irritating, and sometimes depressing. And that's before the rejections start rolling in. It also has not escaped my notice that the last time I looked for work, in 1991, the nation was in the midst of a nasty recession that left 75% of my Harvard graduating class still out of work a year after graduation, and now, in 2010...well.

But it's time. Fourteen years ago, I resigned from my last "outside" job when I got married. I was a diplomat for the U.S. Government, and my then-fiance was an aerospace engineer in San Diego. I was posted to Moscow (the one in Russia), and scheduled to be reassigned to the far ends of Siberia with no phone service, internet, or international airport. This seemed a less than ideal locale from which to conduct a marriage, so I made the decision to leave that career behind, get married, and then figure out where to go from there. I moved (back) to San Diego two weeks before the wedding and I've been here ever since.

In the meantime, I had two babies and became a lawyer, the aerospace engineer moved to the computer industry and then became a lawyer, and we started a law practice. Since becoming a lawyer seven years ago, I've been working mostly part-time in our practice and working mostly full-time raising kids.

Now I want to do something different. Something that comes with a steady salary and full benefits to help balance out some of the disadvantages of the KH being self-employed. When I started law school, it was with the idea of eventually becoming a criminal prosecutor. By the time I graduated, with a toddler and a preschooler in tow, this sort of demanding, full-time career was no longer a viable option for our family. But now the kids are older and somewhat self-sufficient, the KH works mostly from home, and I am finally in a position to consider what I want to do instead of what I can do. So I've put in applications to the various government institutions that prosecute the bad guys and some of the private companies that help them do it, and we'll see what comes of it.

For now, though, I'm clinging to my yarn and needles and my favorite mantra: "Keep calm and knit on."