Sorry that this venue has become mostly a forum for me to spout about my love life. Sometimes you have to scream in the dark.
He's trying hard to talk me out of loving him, which I take as a bad sign. Especially since I am a fairly easily convinced girl. Everything -- EVERYTHING -- hinges on him being accepted to the National Guard. Judegment Day is coming, and the tension is palpable. If the answer is yay, he goes off to war to find himself and a future, one that I hope will fit like a beautiful irregular jigsaw piece into mine. If nay, he self-destructs, and all I can do, truly, is just get out of the way. I don't try to stop trains, anymore.
I love and respect him, deeply. I know it's not enough. He has to figure out how to respect himself first.
Meanwhile, Jen is trying, still, to figure out Jen in the middle of this mass confusion. As usual, when it rains, it pours. After months -- literally, months -- of nothing, not even a glimmer of a spark in the full-time job market, I am overwhelmed by possibility. The freelance client that I tried to fire and I came to an understanding, and she has an immense amount of creative, interesting work to keep me more or less constantly busy. She can sell ice to eskimos, and she has definitely figured out how to sell a good designer as part of her PR package. A full-time position with her still isn't an option, but the money and work is constant enough to allow a freedom of lifestyle that is, truly, quite enjoyable. I just sat contemplating if I could move to FL with my best friend for the winter and fly back up to Boston once a month or so. Yes, I think I could. That's a good life.
Meanwhile, I have an interview on Tuesday for a job I applied for two months ago, and had given up hope on almost as long past. The position is perfect, a web/print art director role at a fashionable e-commerce start-up in the heart of downtown Boston. The pay is right, and I know people who know people, and I would be surprised if an offer wasn't made. Stable dollars in the bank in exchange for sleeping 'til 10 on a Tuesday, traveling on a whim, working from the sunny corner near my bed... the decision would be hard.
And meanwhile to THAT, RISD has been looking, looking, looking at my work, in regards to another perfect position that I had applied to and lost hope on. Another print/web role, working on a team being built to help serve the design needs of the smart new RISD president. Stiff competition from all of my fellow alumni, I'm sure, and if nothing comes of it I will at least be honored that they've spent so much time considering me (5 visits to my portfolio in 3 days, but no word yet.) From the school that deposited a lost little illustrator into the world, but gave her the tools to find her way into the world of great design, it's an honor.
So where does Jen and Alan fit into any of this? I don't know. Jen needs to leave Salem, and soon, and this is the only thing she knows for sure. Whether it's down the road to Lynn, Cambridge, Providence or beyond, it is becoming obvious that the ghosts in this town haunt too much. It is dark here, but that's hard to see sometimes beyond the quaint community charm. It's taken me years to feel it, but I can't shake it now that it's here, and tangible.
I wish I could put the blinders back on.
He's trying hard to talk me out of loving him, which I take as a bad sign. Especially since I am a fairly easily convinced girl. Everything -- EVERYTHING -- hinges on him being accepted to the National Guard. Judegment Day is coming, and the tension is palpable. If the answer is yay, he goes off to war to find himself and a future, one that I hope will fit like a beautiful irregular jigsaw piece into mine. If nay, he self-destructs, and all I can do, truly, is just get out of the way. I don't try to stop trains, anymore.
I love and respect him, deeply. I know it's not enough. He has to figure out how to respect himself first.
Meanwhile, Jen is trying, still, to figure out Jen in the middle of this mass confusion. As usual, when it rains, it pours. After months -- literally, months -- of nothing, not even a glimmer of a spark in the full-time job market, I am overwhelmed by possibility. The freelance client that I tried to fire and I came to an understanding, and she has an immense amount of creative, interesting work to keep me more or less constantly busy. She can sell ice to eskimos, and she has definitely figured out how to sell a good designer as part of her PR package. A full-time position with her still isn't an option, but the money and work is constant enough to allow a freedom of lifestyle that is, truly, quite enjoyable. I just sat contemplating if I could move to FL with my best friend for the winter and fly back up to Boston once a month or so. Yes, I think I could. That's a good life.
Meanwhile, I have an interview on Tuesday for a job I applied for two months ago, and had given up hope on almost as long past. The position is perfect, a web/print art director role at a fashionable e-commerce start-up in the heart of downtown Boston. The pay is right, and I know people who know people, and I would be surprised if an offer wasn't made. Stable dollars in the bank in exchange for sleeping 'til 10 on a Tuesday, traveling on a whim, working from the sunny corner near my bed... the decision would be hard.
And meanwhile to THAT, RISD has been looking, looking, looking at my work, in regards to another perfect position that I had applied to and lost hope on. Another print/web role, working on a team being built to help serve the design needs of the smart new RISD president. Stiff competition from all of my fellow alumni, I'm sure, and if nothing comes of it I will at least be honored that they've spent so much time considering me (5 visits to my portfolio in 3 days, but no word yet.) From the school that deposited a lost little illustrator into the world, but gave her the tools to find her way into the world of great design, it's an honor.
So where does Jen and Alan fit into any of this? I don't know. Jen needs to leave Salem, and soon, and this is the only thing she knows for sure. Whether it's down the road to Lynn, Cambridge, Providence or beyond, it is becoming obvious that the ghosts in this town haunt too much. It is dark here, but that's hard to see sometimes beyond the quaint community charm. It's taken me years to feel it, but I can't shake it now that it's here, and tangible.
I wish I could put the blinders back on.