Words

I got caught in an archives vortex tonight- one of those things where you look at your blog stats and see a post visited that you forgot you'd written, so you click on it, and then you click on "next post" or "previous post" and then start jumping around remembering things you'd forgotten and reliving things you remember but had forgotten how strongly they were felt. Both good and bad, it's all in there. I avoid everything between October 2007 to early 2008, which is too bad because I feel like I don't get those strong reminders of the good in Landon's babyhood, but good because it's 11:30 p.m. and I don't feel like crying. I read about the days after Claire was born, her first Christmas- one post I remember writing with a heart so full of love and happiness I nearly ached with it. I found myself in the spring of 2011 when JP was on month 8ish of his last job search, the happy posts when he got one, and the transitional ones as we figured out how to be a two-demanding-job household.

I read some of my very favorite posts- words that crystallized what I was feeling at the time so well I can't believe I found the words to describe it, and others that were obviously filler should probably be deleted. I read about fun weekends that I love having in print and less fun times that don't need to be in print at all, but I know it helped me to write them at the time.

I read these things and I wonder why I'm not writing more now, when writing has always helped so much before. Why am I not writing about JP's job search and how much it hurts me to watch him go through it? It seems that this time, unlike so many others, I don't have the right words. Maybe because it's such a big thing that it's hard to capture, and yet its daily emotional impact can be so small that it feels false to waste too many words on it. We have wonderful weekends completely dominated by laughter, our kids, and holiday fun. Then there's a day with another rejection where we let ourselves wonder, secretly and separately, what if he can't find something here? There are only two jobs left for which he has applications pending in the area. And then what if he can't find something great somewhere else? What if this goes on for longer than the 6-9 months of our worst-case scenario? What if? What if? And it's not really the practical, not yet, it's the emotional. He wants a job and a career. He wants to work- he's good at working. He's smart, he's driven, he was the teleworking victim of a large layoff. I hate watching the struggle, hate worrying that I haven't said something that I should, hate knowing the other times I've said something I shouldn't, hate when I don't know what to say at all. But on the other hand, my lack of words might come from the fact that I'm actually, finally in a pretty good place to handle it. I no longer want to cry in my office at random moments. I don't stare off into space on the couch or sit in my car in the driveway and prepare before walking in the door. Basically, I have a grip on myself and my deep-seated fear of uncertainty and that has been helpful.

Family members ask, "how's JP doing?" And I appreciate it, the checking in, because it's certainly the biggest thing in our life right now and they love and worry for him. But there isn't really an answer. He puts on a good front and jokes about it in all public moments, he hurts and worries and doubts in others. So he's just going- looking, researching, planning out his next business idea while he waits for responses from job applications. He's still on his laptop at home, some days everything seems exactly the same until something (usually JP himself) reminds me that it isn't and that moment is hard. A hard without words. He's pretty much given up on 2012. New jobs aren't being posted and companies aren't moving to fill the ones currently up. The rejections he's received have all been electronic- he hasn't even been called in for an interview. Things will move in the new year. They have to, and most of the time, I believe it's true.

So for the kind reader who emailed me to inquire how things were going, they're just going- up, down, generally forward. Hopefully we'll have news early in 2013 (and fingers crossed that it doesn't involve a move to a city without an SEC office... or really any move at all, as long as we're wishing). And thank you for being here, reading, when I have the words and even when I can't seem to find the right words at all.