Purgatorio

May 1, 2025

wow! so i'm definitely going to be unemployed. for once in my life, i have nothing that will inform my schedule or what i do. i feel like i'm scared of being unemployed because everything is contingent on others at this point; for every role i apply to, there's probably hundreds of people who are more likely to get it than i am. yesterday my library managers listened to me vent to them about how frustrating this entire process is, that sometimes i fumble in interviews and my brain is slow and then i'm treading water to stay afloat because i forgot which direction to swim towards. and then i want to scream but the walls are thin and i don't want to alarm my neighbors.

amazing! what a great economy i graduated in! maybe i should have applied to grad school but how could i have known?

maybe i need to be more comfortable with instability and uncertainty, even though i'm privileged to have access to home and comfort (though i often feel trapped in my parents' house), i feel like i need to get out, not out of any external pressure, but out of internal -- my own -- pressure, perhaps; i feel like i'm obligated, and i need to venture out, because as much as i desire to remove myself from the bubble of my hometown, i'm also fiercely anxious about the outside world and what it's like to survive on my own. or make completely new friends and acquaintances in a completely new area. it's as if the reality hit me in a way that caused me to become alarmingly weak and unambitious and it's as if i'm in the process of leaping off the edge of the earth and hoping i'll land on my feet.

my boss referenced Dante's Inferno and how one of the worst levels is purgatory, when everything is unknown and all one can do is wait.