The Trifecta

I'm in search of The Trifecta. What is that, you ask? Oh well it's essentially my pursuit of happiness: a good job, a home, and a kid. I'm knocking on the door of 28.5 years and I'm still in search of The Trifecta. I know it's become the sad, sad, sad story of my generation that we're reaching milestones later, and later than we (or our parents) ever imagined. Sam and I appear to be particularly stunted... thanks infertility.

Suddenly it feels as if there is potential, potential to achieve The Trifecta. Unbelievable. Simply unbelievable. I won't get in to the employment thing because that just seems dumb to talk about on a public blog, but I'm EXCEPTIONALLY pleased to announce that the Greavus are house hunting! Eeekkkkk! I know, I know. Probably not that exciting, but to us, we're beyond pumped. The reason we're finally pulling the trigger on a house is probably a little premature and maybe the strangest reason ever to start the search. Essentially, if we decide adoption is our next step, we will have to move. No one, and I really mean that, absolutely no social worker would approve us for a home study in our current setup... we don't even have smoke detectors. When we started thinking about moving, we realized (once again) that rent is not cheap. We started crunching numbers and well, to get into a nice(r) place that will accept our 80 lb Weimeraner, our cat, and would pass a home inspection.... well it's not pretty. I exclaimed, "we could own a house for less than that!" And do you know what? We actually can!

Regardless of the decision to adopt, we would never feel comfortable bringing our child home to our current place, so moving is a must at some time. And now that we've started looking, we're both full three quarters steam ahead. We are trying to be EXTRA cautious with our choices. While we fully realize that the third part of our trifecta could come in the form of the two little embryos we transferred, we also realize that it might not. We could be years and thousands upon THOUSANDS of dollars away from a bring home baby. In order to save thousands, we need enough margin in our monthly budget. Which means the house of our dreams is not in the works, nor is the house we thought we'd buy when we got married... no this is the house of reality. The reality that says any child may cost $30,000+... literally. Dream homes are for later... much, much later. This will be a true "starter home"... and not like the starter homes my generation and those proceeding us thought were starters homes, no this will be a true starter home. But the cool thing is, we're still so excited about it. It probably won't even have five of our top ten wants, but it's still INCREDIBLE that we're even doing this.

As to the whole baby thing... I'd be lying if I said I hadn't thought of the potential we have right now. The potential for a positive pregnancy test on Friday and a bring home baby in 36 weeks. I've certainly thought of how ASTONISHINGLY different out lives would look if we weren't expecting to spend the next few years saving for a chance at a baby. I mean obviously, our lives would look waayyy different just because we have a baby... that in and of itself would be ridiculously different. But in terms of finances, things would radically change if we weren't up against IVF or adoption.

The potential for big things, for life altering change is definitely there... as to how significant the potential is, I have no idea. What are the odds we actually achieve ALL THREE?!?!? Probably slim... our lives simply do not seem to work that way. But two out of three? Still amazing. One out of three? I'd still be thrilled with ANY positive thing right now. Particularly if that one is a BABY... literally, I'll live in a hovel and work for minimum wage for a baby.

Speaking of baby... test day is Friday. I'm giving myself about a 5% chance of a positive beta which is low even for me. My doubts are at an all time high because I had period-ish cramps on and off all day Sunday, all day Monday and most of Tuesday. They are gone now, but I still don't think this bodes well. But one way or another, we'll find out on Friday.

And even if all three fall through, our anniversary is next week... I'm reminded that we are abundantly blessed to have four years of marriage behind us. We have a small trip planned to get away and relax together over a long weekend and I'm ridiculously excited! Other than Florida for IVF (which was too stressful and sad to even consider a vacation) this will be the first getaway since our last anniversary. We're ready.

Blue Skies Smiling at Me

Remember how I said that there were some good things coming to the Greavu's? Well praise the Lord, some good things have arrived!

First of all, Sam accepted a job. Not just any job, but a FANTASTIC job! We were really so blessed to be in the opportunity to choose between jobs. I mean, it's 2013, we're in a recession post-recession double-dip financial crisis time where employment is hard to come by. Who gets offered TWO careers? Apparently people in the medical field. As I stated before, most of the opportunities in Colorado that we were pursuing kind of fizzled out. The one that looked promising was in a less than ideal location, Colorado Springs, (we want Fort Collins or Loveland areas) and the salary was less. Significantly less. So despite the cool factor of living in Colorado and the awesome factor of going to CCRM, we decided to X that one. That left us with two solid opportunities here; both of which offered Sam a position. We seriously felt like we couldn't go wrong. Both are really solid businesses, run by really awesome guys, with really promising futures. It was a tough decision for Sam to make, but ultimately, we are THRILLED with our decision!

Secondly, I GOT A JOB! No seriously, I got a job. It was kind of a whirlwind of a week. Sam made his decision on Wednesday, I woke up to an email on Thursday telling me that I was the top candidate and to hold tight. Friday I accepted a position! Sweet!

Are you ready for this? On top of all of that awesomeness, I met with my old boss from my college years and he wants me to come back and do graphic design work! I'm ECSTATIC! I love working with him and the entire church! It's really a dream place to work. It's only part-time, so I'm going to do both: full time job during the workweek, and part time job at night or on the weekends.

And to top it all off, the last piece of good news is this: we found a home to rent in Athens. As I mentioned before, this process can be terrible. Particularly in a college town where rental units are often not cared for, expensive, and occupied. We decided to live well below our means for the next year in the hopes that we can accomplish two things: IVF and a down payment for a house. If both of those things happen in a year, I'll be blown away, but we decided to go for it and give it everything we've got. We're not getting any younger!

So there: after a lot of not so great news, and months of waiting, we smashed a heck of a lot of EXCELLENT news into ten days! Things are looking up and we're EXCITED!!!!

Life Update

Ughhh! I'm a terrible blogger. Honestly, there's not much going on in my head these days… it's all a mess while we wait for decisions that are both in our control and out of our control. Lovely.

Here's what I can tell you:

• We are not moving to Colorado. I am both bummed and relieved, but that's a story for another day. None of the opportunities turned out in Colorado to be as fruitful as here locally. The good news: it made making the decision a lot easier. And I'm thankful we are on the same page. 

• We have two AWESOME opportunities here locally, and by locally I mean within commuting distance of Athens. We have until next Wednesday to decide. To say I'm a wee bit anxious is an understatement, but mostly I'm just really thankful to be in a position to CHOOSE.

• Speaking of next Wednesday, that's our anniversary. Three years. Crazy.

• Once Sam has made the decision and notified all parties, we will begin our hunt for a rental home. In my experience, this is hell. It's crazy stressful to find a place you can commit to for a year or whatever. It's always a zillion times more than you intend to spend. And it's infinitely more difficult when you throw a cat (rental owners hate cats) and an eighty pound dog into the equation. We're hoping that Athens will be easier and cheaper than Augusta.

• I suddenly recognized that I will not always have my current insurance. While my insurance SUCKS in comparison to those who have infertility coverage, in reality it's pretty good. As in $250 deductible and 10% after that. I've been quoted a little over $400 for the surgery with my current insurance. Therefore, I have a pre-op appointment to discuss (and plan) a laparoscopy with my RE in April. That gives me a surgery date for the first week of May. I'm hopeful that I don't chicken out between now and then.

I think that's about everything swirling around in my head. I apologize for the bullet-style posting and the conglomeration of mess. The good news is that there are some blog worthy events coming soon. Here's a teaser:

• Third Anniversary
• Anniversary Getaway
• Due Date Anniversary
• Sam's Graduation

All of that occurs within the next forty-two days! Crazy!!! 

A Little Sad

I'm spotting. My temperature, though already low, took the deadly downward plunge this morning. My period is imminent. And I'm a little sad about that. You'd think by this point, I'd be over seeing red. I mean, really, did I expect anything different? No, no I didn't. But I guess, no matter what, whether I'm in the midst of treatment or not, it hurts a little each time evidence arrives that I am once again not pregnant.

Like a lot of women, the impending flood also signals the cocktail of female hormones to plummet leaving me irritable and well, sad. So I guess a little sadness today is no surprise. I could simply write the sadness off as a "that time of the month" issue and go on. But really, I'm sad for lots of reasons. My period is just one of them.

Sam and I went on a little date night this past weekend. It was glorious to get out of my mom's house and spend some one-on-one time together! And as we had a gift card, it was a beautifully cheap date night! But what did we talk about? Sam's job opportunities, my lack of job opportunities, and IVF! Hot topics, huh? You can imagine the romance between us, right? We discussed how our original game plan of IVF by the end of this year is looking less and less likely. It simply doesn't seem like we will have $15,000+ by the end of the year. That makes me sad. Really, really sad. A little mad, but mostly sad.

Infertility as a whole makes me sad. It makes me sad that I worry when a friend says they have good news. It makes me sad that friends feel like they have to preempt good news with, "don't worry, we're not pregnant." It makes me sad that a basic human function that more than 90% of women achieve with ease is my greatest failure in life. It makes me sad that we aren't planning to buy a house or take an awesome vacation now that grad school is coming to a close, but rather how we will pay for a radically expensive medical procedure. It makes me sad that I can't give my mom a grandchild. It makes me sad that I can't make my husband a dad. It makes me sad that infertility is literally affecting all aspects of my life. Even aspects like job selection.

Sam and I were discussing our future in terms of health insurance today. What will we do if his job doesn't cover me? Or if it is too expensive for me to be under his policy? One option of course is simply a cheap major medical plan. I've had one of those before. It's not glamorous, but it covers me incase of a legitimate emergency. But there is, of course, no maternity coverage. Sam is ADAMANT that maternity coverage is critical. I laughed. I told him, I, of all people, can feel pretty darn safe without maternity coverage. If we aren't actively in an IVF cycle, I don't see a real need. Sam on the other hand said this, "As soon as you drop maternity coverage, you'll end up pregnant." Is that a promise? Can we cancel my insurance today? But in all seriousness, it sucks that infertility has to even factor into his career. It makes me sad that basic things like where to live are dictated by proximity to good IVF clinics. It makes me sad that insurance packages play such a big part in the decision process. It makes me sad that money has suddenly become infinitely more important to me. The difference in job A and job B is $2000, big deal right? No, that's a HUGE deal all of a sudden. And I hate that.

Tonight, with the arrival of my period due at any time, knowing that I am most certainly still not pregnant, I'm a little sad. Infertility, you suck.

Floundering

I'm kind of uninspired to write at this present time. I'll admit that the whole job search is kind of cramping my style. When doing a google search on my husband, a top find is this here blog. So I don't feel at liberty to discuss too openly what our thoughts or feelings are on each job opportunity, or moving, or any of it. Just know that no decisions have been made, and well, I'll tell you as soon as possible what the future may hold for us.

In the mean time, I'm waiting, rather impatiently I might add, but since when was I a patient waiter? Which is a good segue into the actual topic today. First of all, if you haven't read Erika's guest post today, go do it. She's AWESOME as always. She knocked it out of the park, and totally represented all infertile ladies beautifully in a somewhat delicate situation (a blog-o-thon on motherhood).

Erika really got me thinking. That part where she describes what her twenties looked like. The waiting for her life to get better, for it to have a purpose. The fact that her twenties looked a lot like most toddlers' terrible two's. All of that, I currently resonate so much with. Just like she said, I keep waiting for Infertility to be a footnote. Believe me, it will always be a huge part of my story, but can't it be part of the background history needed to understand me, and not the main event?

I started thinking about how I'm floundering so much in the midst of all of this mess. I'm in the middle of so many uncertainties. Where will we live? How much will we have to live on? Will I get a job?(soon? ever?) Which doctor should we go with? How will we afford IVF? What if IVF fails? Will we ever have kids? How will we EVER afford to pay for all of this? You see? I feel like NOTHING is certain! For free spirits this might sound lovely, but for my type A personality who plans EVERYTHING, this totally sucks.

And that's when it hit me. I'm floundering because I'm not planning anything. Beyond what to do today, I don't have a single plan. I think I'm too scared to plan. I heard recently a phrase, I'm sure it's been around forever, but it totally resonated with me. "We make plans, and God laughs." I don't' take this as proof that God is sadistic or mean spirited. To me it references the fact that my story is a mere sentence in the one He is writing. It's also come to represent to me that planning is fruitless. Whether that's good or bad, it's my current take on life.

Here, have a look at "The Plan"

1. 22 yrs old- get married (behind, got married at 24.5)
2. 23 yrs old- have first baby (scratch, got engaged)
3. 25 yrs old- have baby #2 (nope, just got married, husband's in PT school)
4. 27 yrs old- have baby #3 (not happening)
5. 28 yrs old- have baby #4 I should a pro by now, plus if we want 5, we've got to squeeze it in by 30, you know?
6. 29 yrs old- decide to have baby #5 or adopt, proceed with decision
7. 33 yrs old- regardless of decision, peruse international adoption

In addition to that plan were the plans like:

1. Work full time as a graphic designer
2. Transition to part time to stay home with kids, maybe work from home
3. Help husband open his own PT clinic
4. Move to Colorado

And well, you get the idea, not one item on "The Plan" worked out, or will work out the way I wanted. Planning is fruitless. Instead, I'm kind of waiting for life to happen and then reacting to the changes. It's moved me from the driver's seat to the backseat. While that's good in a lot of ways, it's not so hot in others. I'm not handling my backseat spot with a lot of grace, in fact, sometimes I feel like I'm in the truck. I'm blind to where we are going, we stop, I get out, and then I have to react to the situation or circumstances around me.

I'm hopeful that this is a just a season of life. While I do think that there are valid lessons to be learned about making plans, I don't want to spend my whole life it the trunk. I want to be an active being in my life, not just watching it pass me by. I'm hopeful that in the next few months at least SOMETHING will be decided. Maybe we will know where we are going to live. Maybe one answer will then answer some of the other questions. Maybe it'll be kind of like dominoes, knock one little block down and… voila, made it out of that! In the mean time, I'll just stay here patiently impatiently waiting and hashing out the merits of acting like a two year old (which if you read Alison's blog, you know means throwing objects, hitting, screaming, biting, and subbing things like "Elmo" and "airplane" for expletives). This has potential!

What the Future Holds

Sorry for the long break. The radio silence was intended for a day, not a week plus. I did actually honor it, by the way, and it was sadly pretty difficult. I've been back checking in on blogs and such since then, but I just don't have much to say. There's not a whole heck of a lot going on in my daily life, and I recently feel at a loss as to what to say to others. Bad blogger. Sorry.

We're dealing with lots and lots of unknowns right now. It's pretty hard to plan or dream or do much of anything. Sam has begun the application process. This has been the long awaited point for us that we have looked to with so much anticipation for so long. Now that it's here, I'm full of anxiety. Don't get me wrong, I'm excited. I'm sooooooo ready for that first pay check, but in the mean time, the unknown aspects are kind of scary.

The most likely scenario will be that Sam will find employment somewhere within driving distance of Athens. In which case, we will find a super duper cheap rental in the Athens area (our desired living area in Georgia). I'm currently applying to just about everything in the Athens area myself on the assumption that this is where we will land.

In this scenario, we will stay at RBA with Dr. Slayden. The only foreseeable reason we would leave RBA is if we simply cannot get the funds together for IVF. Sadly, RBA is like THE most expensive. clinic in the metro Atlanta area. There are two other clinics that are significantly cheaper. The first is the Servy-Massey Fertility Institute, which is promising all inclusive IVF for $6,975. The only thing not included in that price is medication. ICSI and assisted hatching aren't even an additional cost. Pretty sweet. But we didn't have an awesome consult as you may remember. The second cheaper option is Georgia Reproductive Specialists which is now doing IVF for $9,500, which is still significantly less than RBA and ACRM. We're keeping both of those in the back of our minds just in case.

Anyway, back to the unknown. We've also decided to throw some applications out west. Rumor has it that PT's (and doctors in general) make more out west. I'm not sure if that's the case for where we would be interested in living, but we will see. If you've been a long time follower of this blog, you might remember that I have a mild love affair with Colorado. It's pretty much the greatest state in my opinion. For a brief period, Sam and I were pretty fired up about moving out to Colorado. And then life started to happen. It started to look less and less feasible. We began to plan for life in Athens and shelve the Colorado dream. However, infertility, believe it or not, has brought Colorado back into the picture. Colorado Center for Reproductive Medicine has the highest success rates of any clinic I've found (props CO). CCRM has come up over and over in the last several months, until the point I just couldn't ignore the feelings I had. Sam and I discussed it, and we've decided to throw some applications that way. We see it like this: 1- it doesn't cost us anything to apply. Just a few bucks for postage out there. 2- Colorado is AWESOME, so moving there wouldn't be a loss. 3- if we're going to pay a zillion dollars for IVF, we might as well go to the best (if we can).

If moving to Colorado doesn't work out, we won't shed any tears. We are fully satisfied with the prospect of living our little life in Athens, the greatest college town in the world. It's a pretty sweet deal to be honest. Southern hospitality, awesome food, beautiful surroundings, excellent social life opportunities, a fantastic church home.... Plus six Saturdays a year the city bleeds red and black as the Dawgs host some team at Sanford Stadium and serve them up as puppy chow. BUT, if Colorado does work out with an awesome job opportunity for Sam, we are prepared to view it as a sign that our path leads west in the hopes of being a one hit wonder in this hole IVF insanity.

With all of that being said, the future is pretty unstable. We could be looking for a rental home in Athens in the next few weeks, OR we could potentially be moving across the country in a few months. That is, of course, assuming that we have a job opportunity at all in the next few months. We are pretty confident that Sam will find employment. However, nothing is certain, as we have learned time and time again over the last few years.

Pause

Do you ever feel like your life is paused? Like the screen is frozen in the most awkward moment? You know that if you could just find the dang remote and press play you could get that awful look off your face and relax.

Ugly face moment from NBC's Do No Harm.
Poor guy, I think he's really intelligent, but he looks quite dumb here.

That's how I feel. My life is stuck on pause and I lost the remote (or Sterling ate it). I've realized lately that I've pretty much stopped living. Literally, the only thing that gets me out of the house is church on Sundays and my small group one night a week. There are soooooo many things that I want to do, but for one reason or another, I don't.

Take running for example. Once upon a time, a long, long time ago I trained for the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer 3-Day. The training sucked a lot. But my mom, the slave driver equivalent to Jillian Michaels had me scared out of my mind. So I trained, and I trained. I was in such good shape by the time the 3-Day actually arrived that the 60(ish) miles in 3 days was actually easier than the first 10 mile training walk. Now, I didn't lose a pound during all of that training, but Sam lost like a gazillion. It was disgusting. So, whenever we get really frustrated with ourselves, we say that we should train for something. Training = motivation. Sam always wants to run. Now, I can't run… like at all. But I figure, I couldn't walk 10 miles at first either. So running sounds ultra hard, but plausible. And then the fear sets in. What if, by some insane miracle, I got pregnant, didn't know it, and went for a run, and well, you know where this is going… What if running caused a miscarriage? I would NEVER get over it. Ever.

The same can be said for Zumba. Zumba looks fun(ish). If I had a partner in crime who was equally uncoordinated and new to Zumba, if we went out and bought new workout attire like Erika recommends, and if we stayed waaaaayyyyy in the back, then Zumba might help get rid of these extra pounds I'm carrying around. But then I think, "what if I bounced my baby loose?". See what goes on inside of this head? It's not fun, I tell you.

Then there is the financial aspect of living. The original plan was to buy a house this year. Sooner rather than later. We figure we got dealt a pretty crappy hand as far as graduating in the middle of a recession, but as far as the housing market goes… it couldn't really be better. We wanted to take advantage now, while a mortgage payment is actually less than rent, rather than miss the boat and watch home ownership sail ten years out of the picture. But that was the plan before we learned that becoming parents was going to cost us BIG bucks. I don't know how to be a home owner and a mom on the same budget. So if I have to choose, well owning a home is possible at 40, while getting this lady pregnant is probably, well, not.

And as far as posterity goes, my plan was to document our life really well with beautiful photos. I've wanted professional photos of us for over a year. I look like a moron 99% of the time in photos, but people like Chris + Allie can make just about anything beautiful. Here's proof:

Engagement photo of Sam and I in Fall of 2009.
All the credit goes to the*Reason for making me look lovely.

See what I mean? I'd love a photo session, but I keep holding out expecting to need maternity photos before too long. Plus, I feel guilty paying for photos of just us.

The pause on life is literally at all levels. When I really thought pregnancy was right around the corner, I wouldn't let myself buy any clothes because obviously I was about to have to buy a whole new wardrobe to fit my baby bump. I've slacked a bit here because everything I'm buying now is larger and therefore more likely to last into a pregnancy, but still the thoughts are there.

Sam and I planned to go on some great vacations. I thought maybe our five year anniversary would be somewhere fabulous like Hawaii or Europe. But we would need to start saving soon to pull off a trip like that sans credit cards. But lets get real, there is at least $15,000 needed before the Hawaii fund gets started, so that will probably never happen.

As far as jobs go, I delayed applying for jobs initially because I didn't want to have to deal with a new employer who wouldn't let me off for an appointment. Plus, I didn't want to have to explain what I was doing or where I was going all the time to a new boss. I figured that there weren't too many employers out there that would be very excited for a new employee who was trying super desperately to get knocked up.

I'm not happy in any way with this pause in my life. I'm so ready to move on, try new things, reach a new status in life. Of course, I'd really like to fast forward a bit, but normal speed would be much better than this stalled out, frozen thing I've got going on. As you may have surmised from the pitiful post from the other night, we are done with medically assisted trying to conceive for a while now. With that HUGE chunk of my life missing, I've got to figure out how to live again. There HAS TO BE joy in the waiting, you know?

Anybody else, fertile or infertile, ever feel like somebody pushed pause on the movie of your life? Did you ever find the remote? Are you still paused or playing away?

Elephant Skin

I need thicker skin. I'd have to equate my skin to tissue paper these days, or maybe butterfly wings. And I need thicker skin. I'll be real honest: I HATE job hunting. Like hate it with a passion. I'm so much more likely to stay in a crappy job that I'm unhappy at than to leave in search of better things because I HATE the entire process.

I hate having to boil my life, personality, experience, skills, and qualifications down to one page. I hate looking at and remembering all of the places I've been and all of the time I've spent at jobs that didn't "get me anywhere". I hate "putting myself out there". I hate indifference. I hate rejection. I hate job hunting.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. I think my generation was given a giant dose of "you can do it" and that has been a major disservice to us. While it's great to believe in yourself and have self confidence, it's not nice to believe the world is one way only to discover the ugly truth years later. My childhood majorly set me up for failure.

Take high school. I honestly cannot remember one thing that I applied for that I didn't get in high school. No really. I was not the most involved, not by a long shot. I was not the smartest. I didn't have the best grades. I was so far from most popular, I wasn't even in that category. And yet, I won my high school's top senior superlative. Granted it was voted by teachers and administrators and not my fellow peers, but still. I won. Miss North Hall was an award given to a senior boy and a senior girl who "most represent what it means to be a Trojan". That's about as undescriptive an award as I've ever heard, but basically it went to a well-rounded guy and gal that the teachers valued. I threw my name in the hat at the last minute on the recommendation of a teacher. "Hey, it will look good on a college application," she said. It's a totally lame reason because by May, when the award is announced, everyone pretty much already knows where they are going, and applications have been in forever, but I applied anyway on a whim. And I won. So weird.

I also managed to graduate high in my class, without even trying. Don't get me wrong, I worked really hard in high school. It's my nature to do all of my homework just in case the teacher takes it up. I made one B in high school my first semester. If I hadn't, I might have been more competitive in the race to the top. But after the B, I figured I was out. So many people make straight A's, the B kind of sunk me. Plus, by my junior year I was so over high school, I didn't care about more AP courses, I was ready to move on. During my senior year I took more courses at the local college than I did at my high school. My last semester I returned to campus each day to fulfill my duties as yearbook editor. Yep, that was my only high school class. I wasn't paying a bit of attention to who was going to be giving the valedictorian speech come graduation. I knew it wasn't me, so my thoughts were "just hand me my diploma, and get me out of here". Wham! In the midst of all of the squabbling and fussing for the top five coveted spots in the GPA rankings, I was suddenly 3rd.

I say all of this to simply paint a picture: high school was so easy for me. Things were just handed to me. I joined most clubs, took on most projects, and applied for most things based on someone's recommendation. I wasn't out there trying to be the best. I had friends who were in the hunt to be the top. They had to ace the exam, win the award, join the club. They wanted big things like med school. I wasn't sure how I really even felt about college (I mean, I'm going to be a stay at home mom, remember?). Being editor, leader, chairman, etc just fell into my lap all of the time. I never asked for it. I guess I was "one of those girls." Ughhh. People probably hated me.

But literally, the only thing that I ever failed at in high school was volleyball. And believe me, this was no great shock to my self esteem. I knew from an early age that sports were not my thing. I met some great older girls just before starting high school who had me believing that my height was such an advantage that I'd be awesome at volleyball despite my inadequate coordination. Silly them. I still sucked regardless of my height. I played for two years on the junior varsity team while my friends played for varsity. I got sick of that and quit after my sophomore year. See what adversity gets me?

So now, here I am, an adult. Past history tells me that people will be lining up to offer me jobs. Seriously, if adult life went like my first 18 years of life, I would be employed and yet I would get calls from people who "need me" to come work for them. Obviously, the real world of adulthood has been a major wake-up call to me. I won't say that I entered the real world after graduating form college with a chip on my shoulder or a "trust fund kid" mentality about the world, but I did think that despite the terrible job market, things would be fairly easy for me. Life always had been before.

And of course it's not. People aren't out there searching high and low for a job for me. My phone's not ringing off the hook with all the offers competing for my time and attention. No, in the real world, I'm a little fish in a big pond. I'm with LOTS of people who need jobs. And the people who get the jobs are the ones who put themselves out there the most, and let's be honest, make the most noise. I'm not a noise maker. I want people to want me purely based on me. So when they in fact, don't want me, aren't interested, or don't call back, it hurts. I need thicker skin.