Sad tonight

It’s about 10:45pm; I’m waiting for the boy to come home, but his job will most likely go very late tonight. The reason I’m sad is because I was hoping for a call about a job today. I had a second interview at a community college. For some reason, I had felt really good about both the first and the second interviews, the latter of which took place on Monday. The interviewer assured me I’d probably hear back by the end of the week, which was today.

Frankly, I rather had my heart set on this job. It’s not so much that it was ideal; in fact I was looking at a lot of lifestyle changes, including teaching five (five!) courses a semester, buying a car to make an hour-long commute, and possibly even moving to the other end of the city. But though I was worried about these changes, there was much more to look forward to than to worry about. A real job. Stability. A salary. Even benefits. I desperately want to feel in more financial control of my life, contribute more instead of letting the boy always pay for those extras. (Embarrassingly, though we generally each pay certain bills, this month I need him to pay one of them because I am running out of money fast. I have never not been able to pay a bill before in my life.)

But arguably even more than these things, I long for a home, if you will. A place where I could get to really know the school, contribute to it. Converse with colleagues, advise students, be part of things. I really want to belong to a place. And this place really seemed nice. I felt great about both interviews. The people were friendly and I felt like I connected with them. The school really seems headed in an exciting direction.

Maybe I was wrong about that connection. Maybe I said something wrong, or just didn’t say everything right that I could have. I keep going over my answers in my head, thinking about how I could have answered them better. This is not going to help anything.

I’m still hoping that maybe I’ll get the call on Monday. The interviewer’s assistant was away for the week, and I know she was behind on things; maybe something came up. But of course, if the call doesn’t come, at some point I’ll need to say goodbye to my fantasies of this job. And it hurts.

If I’m going to be fantasizing about every job I get an interview for — and I know I will, because I pinned high hopes on jobs I just read *descriptions* of last year — I don’t know how I’ll survive the job market.

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