Daily 5 - Day 295

Today's Daily 5:

1. I bought decent walking shoes tonight.  With this new life reality of taking transit everywhere, I've been doing a lot of walking.  I've been doing even more walking than usual this week because of the location of where I'm house sitting, and I've noticed that my favored shoes just aren't cutting it.  My feet and knees HURT.  I've had problems with the tendons in my feet and calves since high school, and bad shoes are definitely not helping with all this extra walking.  So, tonight I caved and spent money, even though spending money when I'm not employed kind of makes me want to throw up.  My mom talked me into buying shoes, reminding me that it would be a better idea to buy shoes sooner than later so that I don't damage the tendons and muscles and bones while I'm busy walking all over the city in bad shoes, and she even offered to drive me to the shop where I could buy appropriate shoes for a decent price.  I'll wear the shoes around indoors for a day or two to make sure they're going to work, but I'm optimistic that this pair will be the one I'll keep, and they were quite a bit less than I would have been ultimately willing to spend.
2. I spent some more time dreaming about the future, and what I want to do with my life today.  A plan is slowly taking shape within me.  Something that somehow just feels right.
3. Errands with my mom tonight, and dinner with both of my parents helped a bit with the feeling of spending too much time alone with my thoughts and not having enough human interaction.
4. I again managed to send off quite a few resumes, and I have some ideas on tap for where else I want to send some over the next several days/week.
5. I've only slept at my grandma's house once in the last three weeks or so.  I realized today that I'm starting to miss my own bed, but that I'm not at all missing that location.  I've not had nightmares in all these other places I've stayed.  And, to some extent, the fact that I've flexibly stayed and slept in a whole variety of other locations over the last three weeks is encouraging to me.  I used to only be able to sleep in my own bed in my own room.  In the last three weeks I've slept in an SUV parked at a highway rest stop, at my parents house, three different hotels - including one very bad hotel cot, on a couch at the home my sister in law grew up in, at a relative's house, in the place where I'm house sitting, and at a friend of a friend's.  And I've actually slept, not just laid awake all night, in each of those locations.  That's a miracle to me, and a huge growth thing for me to acknowledge, and celebrate.

3100

3100 blog posts seems like a milestone.

I feel like I should have something profound to say.

(I never seem to have anything that feels profound to say when the milestone posts roll around.)

Instead I'm just going to acknowledge that I've written 3100 posts.  That I've been showing up here consistently for over 5 years now, and writing about whatever happens to be on my mind at the time.  And I'm going to talk a little about my day.

Today is just one of those days.

I sent out a pile of resumes, and I have a pile more to send.

I heard back from one place I applied yesterday, telling me that I was not going to be a candidate.

I did an errand or two with my mom.

I'm discovering the weird balance of being an introvert and needing human interaction.  Apparently my previous job, however I felt about it, was meeting a need for some human interaction.

I'm finding myself tired of myself the last few days.  Tired of being alone with my thoughts, and the battleground they can tend to be.

Tired, I think, of the ongoing neccessity to choose joy.

Tired of the deep internal wrestles I was walking through with God even before I lost my job and that tension was added to the mix.

And tired of too much time alone.

It's partly why I've been hanging out at my parents' house during the day.  That, and their internet access is better for job hunting than the access at the place I'm house-sitting.  Because they both work from home, I get a bit of human interaction as they come and go from their respective home offices.

Tomorrow I'm hanging out with a friend and her daughter for a while.  I think the plan is for us to go to the farmer's market together.  I'm flexible.  I'll just enjoy time with a friend.

I've been hesitating to set up times to see various friends during the day, always wondering if I'll get a call for an interview, or be starting a job and have to cancel.  I think I'm going to change that.

Since the majority of my job-hunting is online, I can be flexible in which hours of the day I apply myself to that (and I'm determined to apply myself to it for at least an hour or two a day or more.)

That means I can make time for friends.

Yes, I'll maybe have to cancel if a job or an interview comes up.  But I'd rather have those things to look forward to, than stare at empty days.  I'd rather feed my soul and be with people I love.

Because feeding my soul in that way seems wise.  And it makes the choice for joy just that much easier.  And it seems smart, somehow, to try to make what can be such a hard choice easier.