waiting for my real life to begin

raining and pouring coincidences that probably are not coincidences. i don't really believe in coincidences.

i've been job searching for what, a year and a half now? thankfully i've actually had a job for a little over a year of that. i've had some interviews, some good leads, some promising nibbles, and one offer that i turned down.

and in two days i'll have a second interview at a job that i am/was really really excited about. a cushy job. with a pretty office. downtown. with friendly, creative people. i imagined that i would rationalize one new jcrew sweater and pencil skirt with which i would wear my target kitten heels and plastic bead necklaces and feel like a real grown up doing a real grown up office job. a pleasant place to be from 9-5. with a free gym on the same floor. with a real staff room with a fridge and a lunch table and everything. professional. simple. allowing some breathing room in my budget that has felt a bit too much like a seam-stretched sheath dress i can barely zip. stay for a couple of years, schmooze a bit while i'm there, move into an NPO somewhere.

this has been my snuggly little day dream about this job for the last week or so.

i had a big convo with the roomie the other day about possibly moving out if he could find a roommate to replace me and i could find an affordable place to go. i want to be closer to the loop if i get this job, and cheaper living arrangements would help me save some cashola.

then yesterday smacked into me and knocked me over.

non-coincidence #1: my friend R called me and asked me if i would consider interviewing for the position of executive director of the emergency shelter/permanent supportive housing organization for which he is currently the interim ED and of whose board of directors i recently became a member.

i protested.

"i would be the Sarah Palin of shelter ED's! i don't even know what an ED does! i don't know how to manage big budgets! i don't know how to supervise a staff of 12 people! i don't know how to raise fat cash and make nice to city officials!"

he countered each of those arguements with logical, positive, encouraging bits of lunacy. i told him i would think about it. and i did. and as i drove to the board meeting that night, i decided that i did not want to do it.

then i sat in the meeting and i got all fired up. maybe i could do this! maybe this is exactly what i have been waiting for! maybe this is my real life jumping up to bit me on the ass and i am running away from it. maybe.

non-coincidence #2: i got on my email last night and my former roommate announced in an email blast to her friends that she needs a new roommate. that her current roommie has decided to move. i squirm uncomfortably at the idea that maybe Jesus is laughing really hard.

non-coincidence #3: my roommate gets home and tells me that he was talking to the upstairs neighbor and that she has a friend who is looking for a place in roger park but can't afford a place all on her own. and they even asked him if i would ever consider moving out, because they would love for this friend to move in with my roommate so they could be close by and share the expenses.

very tricky, this life decisions thing. very tricky indeed. my first plan of action is to see if i even get offered this cushy nicey-nice day job. if i do, i'll have to make a decision: take the cushy nicey-nice job that is sort of in my field or wait and see if this ED thing pans out that would be totally ridiculous, completely beyond my capabilities, waaaaay more work than they could afford to fairly compensate, long nights, long days, crazy-freak hard work. brilliant, important, epic sort of work....