Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming.

I talked to someone I work with about my employment/job/career/calling/inability to make it on my own today.

I'm getting a new response these days. Now people, after listening to my story, are telling me I should go into business for myself. They agree that it's ridiculous that nobody has hired me. They can see how much brains and talent and energy I have. So I should go into business for myself.

Gee, there's an idea. ok, I'll do that. Doing what?

What can I do?
I can sing.
I can act.
I can make jewelry, but I don't really enjoy it.
I can write.
I can give massages.
I can organize closets.

What, of the above things, do I most love?
Singing.

I keep thinking of that black lady from the south, the grandmother who loved to make pasta sauce, who got a grant from some women's foundation to go into business making and selling her pasta sauce. She didn't do it alone. Her son ran the business. All she had to do was make the sauce.

I'm alone. I really have no one. My boyfriend has a busy successful career of his own. My parents are struggling, and far away. I have no siblings. I have no friends who are the least bit interested in becoming my marketing and sales force.

Where do I start?

I need some serious counseling. I've been obsessing for so long. There are days when I can't stop crying, and today is one of them.

I have no health insurance. I need someone to talk to. Someone who can ACTUALLY HELP. My friends have nothing to say that I haven't heard a million times.

I have lost track of how many times I've felt I should just declare bankruptcy and get this debt off my shoulders.

I'm so upset today I don't know what to do with myself. My boyfriend is planning vacations for us, things to take me away from all this. I'm dating Calgon. He keeps saying that he can see a light at the end of a tunnel, even if I can't. Maybe today I have lost my faith. Maybe it's PMS.

The bottom line is, I am unable to be self-sufficient, and my gifts are wasted. That is really what's killing me. I have all this to offer, and NOBODY WANTS IT. That's what's got me so crippled today.

Singing in my living room at the top of my lungs used to comfort me, but it doesn't anymore, it just makes me angry. So I sing angry songs, and I wind up sitting on the floor screaming and crying. I don't even know where to go anymore. I don't even know what to google, who to call. I keep thinking over and over that this is why people kill themselves, that they feel their birth was pointless, that they are a waste of skin. That's what Kurt Cobain said about himself - "I'm a waste of skin." Well, Kurt, at least someone wanted to record you. At least someone wanted to hear your music. At least you had that.

I don't want someone to tell me I'm a worthy person, they love me, everything's going to be ok. I want someone to tell me they need me to show up on Monday ready to work, ready to use my brains and my talents, and not just my body, my brute strength.

Don't tell me to hang in there. Tell me where to apply, where to audition, where to send a resume. I've had it with the pep talks. I need results, and I need them soon.

However, right now, I'd settle for a counselor with Saturday hours. Having a rough time finding that as well. I've been trying. I'm still trying.

I'm going to die trying one of these days, and that's what they'll put on my tombstone. "Here lies Deidre. You never heard of her, but she died trying."