When you’ve been unemployed as long as I have, it’s hard to stay up. When 470,00 job seekers just stop looking out of frustration, it makes it even harder. It is in those times that I take a long shower, sitting at the bottom of the tub with my arms wrapped around my raised knees and my head hanging in the water. There I think about things.

How did I get here?

How much longer will I be here?

What else can I do?

Shoulda? Woulda? Coulda?

It’s the last one that bites the hardest. For instance, should I have taken that job in Canada? One thing is for semi-sure: if I had, I would be employed. The fact that a large reason I didn’t take the job was the relative weakness of the Canadian dollar to the American one is both ironic and sourly laughable now. “I won’t,” I reasoned, “be able to move back the U.S. in a few years, as I would most assuredly want to, because all of my Canadian savings would amount to only half as much in U.S. currency. I’ll be stuck there!” Which I learned from my visit, is not an absolutely awful place to be stuck.

Having said that, though, I think of all the things that I would have missed. Living where I live, spending time with ADG, pursuing my dream of working in a field that is obviously impossible to work in… though there is some spiritual value in the pursuit, etc, etc. All things considered, I’d say it’s been more than worth it, if only to save myself from saying, “eh?”.