This may sound like an odd coping tool, but in truth, it is. After getting home, the next question I asked myself was, "Now what?" At the time, I turned on Netflix and tried to bury my head in the sand. But then I started setting up little projects for myself. My mother was having me make dinner on Thursday nights (the night she would work late), so I would look up recipes and plan a couple weeks ahead. I started looking up knitting and crochet patterns and working on them. I made plans and found yarn that I really liked and experimented with it. I started writing again and planned out stories that I wanted to write down. And I started looking into things to do.
If you can call it a job, my father "hired" me to make labels for the numerous things he had printed out to read for various reasons. Why did he want me to make the labels? His handwriting has gotten to the point that even he can't read it anymore. It's really that terrible. So I would sit with a little lap desk on my lap and write out labels for him while watching Netflix. After that, I volunteered in my mother's library working in the technical services office. Essentially, that's the office where everything gets cataloged, barcoded, put in mylar jackets, and labeled. It's also where donations get sorted, books get mended, DVDs and CDs get cleaned, and various other things get done. So as you can imagine, I had a number of little odd jobs that I could do for the few months that I was hanging out with them.
I was always looking for a job. Looking for something else to do. Trying to find some meaning and something to keep me occupied. Otherwise I would sit and spin in my own thoughts. And that was something I just could not do.
My looking eventually landed me a job working as a facilitator for a child in a Montessori school. The boy's optical nerves are too small and thus he had issues reading. Not the comprehension part, just the reading. So my job was to sit with him and help him to get things done. I liked it. The kid I worked with was eight years old and was in a room of six to eight year old's. Some were concerned about me working with children, but I assured them, working with kids of their age was not a problem. Had it been babies, I would have been sunk. But at the time, I would just look at the kids and wonder what my kid would look like when he was that old.
In October, about three months after giving birth, I finally landed my first full-time job. This job led to me moving out of the house, getting another full-time job in the same school, and finally finding the friends and the adventures that I have found thus far. It hasn't always been easy, but it has been worth it.
So my best advice, do something. Knitting, writing, running, a job, volunteering, anything. Just do something that gets you moving again and get you out of your own head. Hope you are all doing well and that you have a wonderful weekend!
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