Dear Clinic: You Should Stop Frontin' (You Know You Want Me)

Today's theme song: Frontin' by Pharrell

Do you ever wish you could create the impression you’re something you’re not?

I know people who pretend to be more confident and self-assured than they actually are. Some people dumb themselves down around others, whereas others go to great lengths to prove how ‘smart’ and worldly they really are.

As for me, lately I’ve been wishing that I could come across as cool, collected, and perhaps even a little blasé about my job search. The fact remains, though, that I am uncomfortably preoccupied (read: a tad obsessed) with getting out of the house and earning a real paycheque again. The Suzy Homemaker role was fun for a while, but lately the thought of donning my hot pink apron and whipping up a mean dinner has got me feeling less than enthused. (Actually, it gets me feeling like a thousand tiny ants are crawling over my body and ripping microscopic little chunks out of my skin with their tiny little mouth-claws, but I digress…)

I’ve mentioned in a few posts now that I’ve been waiting on this mysterious clinic job to get back to me with news about my fate in the workforce. Well, I’m still waiting. Still. I don’t know what bothers me more about this: the fact that they’re taking so effin’ long to make a relatively simple decision (after all, the last I checked, they weren’t auditioning for the role of God!!), or the equally distressing fact that I’m still waiting. WAITING!!!

In the rational part of my brain, I know that this clinic gig is not my dream job. To be honest, it’s not even close. But that hasn’t stopped the pathetic lobe of my brain from getting activated and pleading to the powers that be to call me. (Picture that cheesy lip-synched ‘call me!’ hand motion playing over and over in your mind. This is what I’ve been reduced to. ‘Call me!’ Thumb to ear and little finger wagging near the mouth. ‘Call me!’ Eyebrows raised in expectant fashion. ‘Call me!’, etc., etc., ad nauseum.) GAH!!!

The truth is, I’ve been doing lots of career-related reading and exercises lately, and the picture that is emerging of my ideal work is a wee bit scary to me. It’s not scary in the sense that I’m horrified about what my interests and talents are (e.g. ‘I like math?! What?!! NOOOOOOO!!!’ No, no. Have no fear, dear readers, I don’t really like math!), but it is scary in the sense that I might have to go out and create a job for myself that doesn’t really exist yet. I shouldn’t say it doesn’t exist, because some people are doing something similar to what I think I’d like to do— on different topics. Caroline Myss, Andrew Weil, Amy Swenson, and Stephanie Pearl McPhee—they’ve all found some way to combine the two things I enjoy the most (writing and teaching) without working in a university. The thing that these people have that I don’t, though, is a topic. Kind of an important thing, that topic. Some might even say it’s essential for would-be writers to have one...

That’s why the prospect of going it alone right now is too overwhelming (and highly impractical): I want to write, but I don’t know what I want to write about just yet. And that’s why I’m still waiting on this clinic job. Call me!