I hope that IS the truth. In my experience, so far, it ALWAYS is the truth. Keep facing it, whatever your personal *it* happens to be.

I've been reading your blog faithfully but have never left a comment. I just had to tell you I understand every emotion you are going through with the job hunt. The emotional rollercoaster seems to much to bear at times, and the crying has made me think i need to seek medical attention. I'm actually contemplating moving to another state and TEMPING just to get away from the hell hole otherwise known as "the office." But, i'm propelled on by the fact it can't get worse, it has to get better, very soon...right?

It's the truth. I mean would Alex, Steve, your best friend, 10 strangers, and one career coach lie? It'll get better. I can't guarantee when or how, but it will. When things get way too shitty, do what I do. Put in a little DMB, roll down the windows of your truck, crank up the music and sing your ass off. If that doesn't work, switch to Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon, get some good alcohol and get shit-faced, toe-up, hugging the porcelain god drunk. At least you'll forget for a little while. I can guarantee that barfing up your toenails tends to make you forget.

I agree. Getting shit-faced works wonders...

Sometimes life doesn't always go the way we want it to. We often have to do things that we don't like to get to where we do want to go - be it a new Monkeyco, or opening your own cupcake bakery.

We can't appreciate the good if we don't experience the bad... trust me, you'll love the cupcake experiences that much more. Plus, you have your boy and a whole lot of friends to lean on and offer you support. That, in itself, is really special.

Best of luck. You'll be fine. A few months from now, you'll be rereading your post and laughing about it as you sell your first cupcake.

Hang in there, kid. You are living my DREAM, so I'm so behind you, shouting "Go, kiddo, go!"
Just think, you could be doing the whole diapers/barfing/screeching thing right now.
Thank Ye Gods...
Gooooo, Cupcakes! (A sucker for anything carb-o-licious)

Honestly, this is not meant as advice, or anything more than an observation. And a thought or two based on personal experience. The job being spliced? In my experience, these totally horrid, shitty-at-the-moment things always.always.always turn out to be life's little way of giving us impetus to make the choices, or changes, that we really want/need/struggle to make. It is impossible to feel lucky or appreciate the shift in the moment, when it seems like nothing but an anchor weighing us down with worry and fret. But a shift it is. If you let it...if you help it...if you WANT it...it will take you in directions you may not even be aware exist yet.

Yes, it's trite. And cliche'. And yes, I'm a nobody in the netherlands of the internet. But it's also truth that I've witnessed personally time after time.

Be patient. Be watchful. Be prepared to take advantage. Because 'life' can only do so much for you without your participation.

One word: Zoloft!

It worked wonders for me when I was in the same situation.

Far be it from me to refer to a cheesy movie in a serious situation, but the Gumball Rally applies here: "What's behind us is unimportant." It sounds to me--a complete stranger--that you're beating yourself up trying to figure out what you might have done differently. That effort won't be worth it in the long run. Just focus on whatever it is you can do now and let the past remain there, as much as you can.

Hey, I know how ya feel. When I was workless I couldn't get the feeling of being wothless out of my head. But it made me change my situation, forced me making a descision, I moved somewhere else, annother country, annother job, and I had a good time here. I wouldn't have done that without having feelt bad before. And if now things are hard for me again (this time because of annother reason, though), I know that this feeling has two meanings:

1) I had a good time before, and now I start to appreciate it

2) When I'll have a good time again I'll appreciate it even more

Until that point, like many people here recommended, I'll get shit-faced! And that helps as well!

girl, you need a Xanax

I'm proud of you..

Really, really proud of you.

Deb, It occurred to me whilst reading these comments that help may be closer to hand than you think. You have a great number of loyal commenters, why not use this network to look for job leads? What kind of work (apart from the cupcakes :-) ) are you looking for? For example, I work in the finance industry, so give us an idea, and hopefully we can collectively help.

I just saw a new coffee/cupcake restaurant open up in Seattle. Some inspiration???? The website has a "cupcake photo gallery".

http://www.veritecoffee.com/

Even though I refer to Andersen Consulting / Accenture as The Evil Empire, they did have 2 good programs that they allowed people to take. First was a 6-12 month break where you could pause your job to do something else (travel, go to culinary school, anything) and still get something like 25% of your pay. At least it would pay some of the bills. The second was a job search. You would go on job search and get 6 weeks paid to look for a job. Once that time was over you moved on, job or not. Don't know if your company has anything like that, but HR would know.

Thank you everyone for all of your comments. I really appreciate it. Sadly, the Zanax suggestion has the most appeal right now...

It's hard for me to say exactly what I am looking for, seeing as I've got all sorts of confidentiality issues with my current job, but suffice it to say that arts, media, publishing, and/or food are the areas of interest, and if all of you can cross your fingers for me, I'm waiting for a call back today about a potential opening. (!!!) I'll keep you posted.

Good luck. As someone who is going through a near parallell experience, I know the sudden moments of meltdown when you simply just can't deal with it. You get tired of yourself being so unhappy about it and almost unable to make changes. Being overwhelmed with the little details. This sound TOTALLY hoaky, but you might want to check out "Do What You Are" - i'm reading through it now, and it's a very good reaffirming thing. No surprises but I do feel really validated... I hope you do too. Good luck on the call!!

Don't take it out on yourself, take it out on your boss — I always find a little bit of sabotage does wonders for my mood when my employer makes my life difficult.

As Will suggested, if you need to network, let us know. Maybe 'We' can help the job search.

as my own life is in a bit of a shambles, i wouldn't dare to try to offer you advice on how to remedy the situation - but i think it's amazingly brave that you shared your emotions and i have to think that doing such is the ultimate conqueror.

you're a sweet girl, you got a good man, and it's all going to work out.

being stuck in a place that makes you miserable is claustrophobic and draining - and speaking as someone who is smack dab in the middle of three years of hell before the light at the end of the tunnel, the only thing you can really do is keep looking forward, day to day and keep thinking that it is going to get better. because really, it always does.

I guess everybody hurts, me too, Deb, I cry, I sleep alone, I don't even confront the mirror anymore, «bad things happen, darkness descend,» says John Laroche in «Adaptation», and for me it was my girl disappearing, moving abroad, back in two years if I wanna wait, do I?, I don't know, keep asking myself: should I quit this part my life and go be with her, is that at all possible?, and as long as I have no answer, no clear cut answer, just how am I supposed to get by down there?, moneywise?, jobwise?, and all that (and how can I just quit when all I really want, all WE want I hope, is hers in mine and vice versa?), then it's back to my empty bed and my tired old apartment... so what can I say?, nothing really, nothing but the obvious: keep holding on, and the wishful: help is coming