Desolate, Hopeless & Fairly Unlovable....

A rather crummy collection of emotions right now, but aptly sums up how I feel.

The job hunt continues to wax & wane. Had another interview today that I had been very excited about. Ended up being the longest, shortest 25 minutes of my life this summer. I had so hoped that this job would be "the one" and it's pretty obvious that my timetable is no-where the same as their timetable. Disappointment is at all-time high levels right now.

My current options are: my choice of two pediatric sweatshops, an office that is under construction with me being the token "white girl", another practice about 20 miles away that seems OK on the surface, but in fact may be run by a psychotic witch, and then the ever-silent favorite practice 12 miles from my home. I went into medicine, Why????

Right now, I'd like to be practicing general pediatrics in an office, with reasonable hours, with a day off during the week, minimal night call, minimal weekend call, and time to spend with my family, my cats and my scrapbooking. Believe me, in the past three years, I've paid some serious dues including 20 months of every-other-weekend on call. It is literally impossible to ever leave town with that schedule. Frankly it feels like I'm asking for the moon, the stars, and unlimited shuttle access to both....

And then the clock is ticking. August 31st is just not that far away and I'm desperately starting to feel like I'm running out of time. I'm worried (OK, Freaked Out!) because my salary is the primary household income and now that Masha is in the picture, it just feels like the stakes are so, so much higher. Michael tries to help by telling me we have some savings to cover my being off for a month or two, but then he rapidly follows that with in-depth accounting statements of why that option is *bad*, *very bad*, *very,very, don't-want-to-go-there* bad. Believe me, I get it. I get that my being out of work jeopardizes our financial security in a very serious way. Which certainly doesn't help with the stress. But the alternative of taking a job that I hate & being stuck with it for a minimum of a year and being an absolute b**** to live with, is some place that I don't really want to go either.

There is a tremendous psycological cost tied to all of this which tends to be discounted. I sent out about 740 letters, had about 20 returned for various reasons, and have had a total of six interviews. If you add it up, that's an awful lot of rejection and my self-esteem & confidence are really starting to show it. It also hasn't helped that for the past three years I've worked with someone who has felt the need to inform me nearly daily that I'm an idiot with barely borderline competence. It's only been marginally helpful to realize that this is more that person's problem and not mine, because the message has been so toxic. Rationally, I know I should have left years ago, but obviously change is very painful and I genuinely liked the work. So now I'm here. I'm in the midst of change, and I just want to curl up & die. I've decide that some years, it just doesn't pay to get out of bed. Thank God my scrapbooking is going well, because some days that's all that gets me though.

Sadly enough, I really could use the break. I'm getting scared about the board exams this year. This is my fourth try, which is not particularly confidence inspiring. And the end of the third year chronologically since I finished residency, which is a huge deal to lots of the insurance companies and credentialing boards, and some potential employers. I've had one network refuse to talk to me, and I've had another one say that if I hadn't passed by Dec 31st that they'd have to cancel my employment. Sort of ironic in that the scores haven't typically been released until mid-January, so I'd just be setting myself up by pursuing that company. SO this year, it would be so nice to have some time off to really study and nail this damn thing once and for all.

So juggling all of the above, while trying to manage caring for Masha, getting her all about to swimming, gymnastics, day camp, etc, managing the household and housework, errands, dinner, staying on top of laundry, and being hither & yon as people demand, is leaving me daydreaming about a really, really long caribbean cruise on about an hourly basis. It hasn't helped that Masha got bit twice by the same 8-year-old kid at day camp last week, and by Sunday night she was crying to "not go back to where the kid bites me." So I'm trying to come up with childcare options from scratch for two more weeks and basically took this week off on an emergency basis to be at home to watch her. It's also not helping that we've hit that well-known "fourth" month when she's losing her Russian fluency and her English fluency is not good enough for her to be as expressive as she wants -- so there's a lot of frustration and acting out coming from her and I'm dealing with the brunt of it. In addition to the usual amount of testing behavior just due to her headstrong nature. Yesterday there was a span of time when both of us were literally banging our heads into the wall.

I'm also trying to deal with the follow-up for what turned out to be an abnormal mammogram. Although the radiologist's notification letter made a huge point that the abnormal findings "Were NOT Cancer!" they apparently still need to be followed up on. And then the thyroid ultrasound appears to have turned up a new nodule that I'm having to start the work-up for all over again. And I'm trying to get all of this accomplished while I'm still covered by both our health insurances. I have to admit that I'm questioning the real motive behind "preventative maintainence" right now. And then last week, I started letting some of my more favorite people know that I was leaving at the end of August. Have I mentioned before how much I really hate making people cry? And how much I hate that question "What are you going to do???" Especially when I don't have an answer....