I stare at the tiny TV screen in front of me, as I try to distract myself from the turbulence and the next 40+ days. I glance out the window and then quickly back at the screen. “Denver” peers back at me from the small map, and I remember you telling me to ask the pilot to make a quick stop in Denver on the way from San Francisco to Brooklyn. You are just 34,692 feet away from me and I wish I could stretch my arm over that distance, just to feel your hand in my hand, for one moment; your lips on my lips.

 

In that same instant, the running dialogue in my brain starts to repeat “ridiculous” over and over. I wonder at all that has happened in the 14 years between our first kiss and our last; hope that my fear that you will break my heart is just that; and remember you looking at me in the moment before our lips touched in that 14-years-later instant in my hotel in Denver last Friday. I remember how surprised I was at how much I felt, and how much I don’t want you to go away… My mind questions what happened in those 14 years to make this happen now?

 

I imagine you next to me, and what that would be like to wake up with you tomorrow morning.

 

I would blink my eyes to adjust to the dark, using the slits of sun peaking out from the gaps in the curtains to orient myself. Your breath would be metered and deep. As I turn over to run my fingers over the landscapes of your body, you would stir quietly. The warmth of your sleeping core would radiate through my fingers and meet my coursing blood. A chill would follow the nerves of my arms and cascade through my being. You would smile that sleepy and disoriented smile—the one that simultaneously reads that you are exactly where you should be…

Instead, I just feel the claustrophobia of the plane and ponder the last 14 years and the next...

 

 

 

 

Dear You,

Because no one else will tell you this, I will:

It's okay to feel this completely exhausted about the job search. It is ok to feel like hope is lost, and that you just wasted 7 years and $100k. It's ok to feel like you don't know how to get out of this pit or that it will take a miracle, and the world is short on miracles these days...

It's ok to feel like you will never get a job. It's ok to wish that you could figure out how to communicate how awesome you are in a 2 page letter. It's ok to feel lost because no one else can see that. 

I remember when you wrote this: "I just want to be semi-good at this. I don't need to be a super star or win any awards. I just want to make a tiny difference in the occasional student's life." It was in the middle of your Master's Program... so many years later and the same truth remains....

It's ok that you have to read that letter from your student almost every day to get through this: "Honestly, you have been an inspirational teacher for me..." It's ok not to know when "through this" will be...

So, it's ok to be mad at your friends when they tell stories about how one can just get a job if they put the intention out there... or when they tell you that "everything happens for a reason" from the cushiness of their employed status. It's ok to be upset with the propaganda out there that tells of the Amerikan dream, and how everyone who is unemployed is just lazy or stupid or both.... And it's ok to need people to stop telling you that it will be ok, and just accept that it is NOT ok now because that is what you are dealing with...

It's ok to be mad at that woman you dated who said you two probably wouldn't have fought if you hadn't been so stressed about the job search.... and it's ok to feel like you don't want to continue to waste all of your time on cover letters for jobs you will never get...

It's ok to still want this more than anything in the world, and it's ok that you don't understand why no one can see what an amazing colleague you would be, if given the chance.

it's ok that it is not ok...

love, me