Day 154 of Unemployment. Or, 106 business days.

I'm sitting here trying to prepare for a networking happy hour later on this evening. I've got some business card templates, and I'm going to create my own business cards to pass out, should the occasion arise. Am I expecting big things to come of this happy hour? Not really. But I'm remaining optimistic in the hopes that if nothing else, it will be a learning experience. I'm not going to get my hopes up, just take it for what it will be.

This is the longest I've ever gone without work in the last 10 years. I've held steady employment, at least 1, sometimes 2 jobs, since I was 16. Fourteen, if you count all the babysitting gigs I held while in school. So being out of work is uncomfortable for me. I hate it. I think I've made that clear in some of my previous posts, so I won't get into how much I really just don't like being out of work.

Sam says to me, "well lots of people are out of work right now. We're in a recession." I don't really care about why other people are out of work. It sounds heartless, but I really don't. I wish them the best of luck, and if I can help anyone I know who is out of work, I certainly will, but I care mostly about why I'm out of work, and what I'm going to do about it.

In some ways, I am facing my worst fear. My parents suffered terrible layoffs while I was coming up in this world, and I've never forgotten about how horrible an experience it is when one or both of your parents are out of work, and the emotional stress and turmoil that comes along with that. The arguments about money, and having to cut back on expenses, and worrying about when it's all gonna end. I endured it as a child, and I'm enduring it again as an adult. My parents never knew how their unemployment situations stressed me out, but I always promised myself I would never let myself get into that kind of a situation. Feared it. Yet, here I am.

The worst part of unemployment, is that none of it really makes sense to me. I've done everything right thus far in my life to ensure success, taken every step imaginable to make sure that I am not just employable, but highly sought after. I've sent out hundreds of resumes and job inquiries, attended networking seminars, talked with friends. By all accounts, with my education and work experience, I should've gotten another job by now. But here I am, at 12:04 on a Thursday afternoon, typing in a blog about how I CAN'T seem to get a break. I can't wrap my head around it. The hardest part is watching my friends have such success in their careers, while I'm still struggling. And it's not that I don't want them to be successful, more than I want to be right up there with them. I know I have worked just as hard, if not harder than most of my friends and people I know, yet here I am, still struggling years after I thought I'd be in a good place in my life.

I remember my mother going through a similar situation soon after my family moved to Texas in 1998. For the first year or so, my mom stayed at home with us, presumably to help our transition to this foreign country, I mean new state, a little easier.

When she tried to go back to work, sometime during my sophomore year of high school, it was quite a struggle for her to find employment. My mom was never much of an emotion-shower; she kept her feelings to herself, and rarely ever cried. To this day, she is the toughest, strongest person I know. I can count the number of times I saw her cry on one hand. She never let anything phase her. So it was a real shock to me when I saw her come home after an interview one day, and head straight to her bedroom, shut the door, and start bawling. At 15, I just didn't have what it took to console her, didn't know the right words to say to make her feel better.

And at 26, I still don't.