What do you do?

After nearly 13 months of unemployment I am, once again, working full time.  Outside the home.  You know, a regular person with a job.  Me again.  After the first few months of panic and nausea, when I realized we were okay financially and the stress was not likely to cause a divorce, I actually enjoyed being home this year.  Not enough to ever really relax into it.  After all, the job search was a constant, nagging, depressing, fruitless, presence.  In those 13 months I had exactly five first interviews, one second interview, finally one offer (after only a first interview).

I reinvented myself several times mentally over the year:

 I would offer myself up to non-profits, slave away administratively for a relatively low salary and help to save the [planet] [mistreated animals] [abused children] [battered women] [the DNC] insert the cause of the appropriate agency here.  I did not receive any responses to my spiffy resume and well crafted cover letters.

I would (finally) pass the Virginia Bar and rather than slave away putting more money into insurance companies' pockets (the unfortunate place where I've spent the bulk of my professional life) I would go work for a public entity and help to save the [abused children] [battered women] [poor and the meek] [people who can't afford a high priced defense lawyer] [the Commonwealth] [the Country].  I didn't take the Virginia bar and thus eliminated the prospect of passing it.

I would offer myself as an independent contractor to assist law firms getting ready for a trial (this doesn't actually happen very often, most cases settle in the civil litigation world, so there is an enormous amount of work to do to prepare when in does happen - I'm good at that work) and intermittently work 90 hours a week for relatively large sums of money, accompanied by enormous stress and anxiety and a complete relinquishment of all parental obligations and pleasures.  Didn't happen - just writing the words gives me a stomach ache and PC is gone all the time so I don't actually have 90 child free hours a week to offer.

I would start keeping the house really clean and cooking low cost healthy meals every night and put on makeup and clean clothes before PC got home from work and fetch his slippers after he walked in the door to show him how great it would be if we just agreed that I'd stay home forever.  Didn't even really try that one.  I'm so not June Cleaver.

And here I am.  An admin bitch (that's an affectionate term used by me and PC not by my employers) for a technology company.  Pay:  Okay.  Stress:  None.  Dress Code:  None (jeans and tennis shoes mostly).  Benefits:  Great.  Level of Contentment:  Pretty High.  Makeover in Future:  Nah.