Back in the UK - didn't get job but have something way more important

So, I didn't get the job for which I was shortlisted.  I am sad about that on the one hand and kind of relieved that I get to fly back to NYC and live there for real again.  Being in limbo is a strange place and while I thought I would have liked the job, the fact we didn't click means it wasn't for me.

Minutes after hearing that news, I was offered an exciting opportunity in NYC that I could not have accepted if I had gotten the job, so I wonder, too, what forces are at work...

On the other hand, I am enjoying visiting London and my travels up north. I'm seeing people I haven't seen since October and also have made some new friends.  I'm going to be able to celebrate some milestones with folks this weekend that are pretty significant and that's a bonus prize.

But, having said that, with the exception of the first day I got here, it's been cloudy and/or raining the whole time.  I am reminded of the simple joy of living somewhere (NYC) where the non-event is the sun (because it's so common) and the event is the rain.  Here it's the opposite.  It's also incredibly lush and green because of that, so it has its benefits.

I am staying with my friends Luis and Nancy and their children.  Their neighborhood is quite leafy and lovely.  We were discussing how, being in London, NYC feels so far away, which is does.  They are Colombian and Colombia also feels far away.  I've only been here for a few days and NYC seems almost like a mirage.

The same thing happens to me in NYC, London and everywhere else seems very far away.  Something about these big cities with their ecosystems that are so total they make other places seem remote or even fake.

I'm pretty much ignoring the Queen's Jubilee as much as humanly possible.  I would do the same in the US for the equivalent flag-waving event, so it's not anti-British...it's just anti-flag-waving.  Happily most of my friends seem to be ignoring it as well and living as most of them do in the East End, this is remarkably easy.

Because of preparing for the (relatively traumatic) interview I missed writing the blog post I wanted to write memorializing the one year anniversary of this blog (May 23).  I am sad about that because I wanted to have a snapshot of the year...but best laid plans and all that.

I find it amusing and somehow typical that at the year mark I  am still to some degree in transition or at least without a Hollywood ending.  I think I may have fallen in love with this recent job prospect in hopes I could end the blog on a flourish, but secretly I knew that wasn't going to happen because nothing about my life or this blog has been like that so why, magically, at a year would there be a big swooping Answer to Everything?

However, what has happened this year, which is frankly Way more important than this job is a sense of myself that has grown from the bottom up and feels strong and organic.  A friend of mine last night dared me to think of all the things I had done right in the job interview, because even before I heard the official news today, I knew I hadn't gotten the job.  I could just feel it and was doing the requisite sobbing when I got back to the hotel.

So, I reluctantly took her suggestion and realized something incredibly important: during the whole job interview process (which was Long....6 hours long), I was myself.  I never once even thought of trying to be someone else.  This might sound like a small victory or seem painfully obvious, but in the past when I have sensed disapproval, I have either shrunk to nothing, given up or become hopelessly obsequious or in some cases hostile in response.  I did none of these things.  I just kept showing up for one task after another, answered or presented honestly, did my best even as I sensed: hmmmm, this isn't going over very well, is it?  I was afraid at times.  I did doubt myself at times, but I never ducked or hid.

That is a victory and it comes from this: from having had everything stripped away from me that could get stripped away.  When this happens, whatever is 'you', which is not 'you' but is you on a deeper level, something else I can't describe, remains.  There is a security there that is indescribable and is in fact unshakable because it is real not simply a construct created to agree with someone else's idea of you or in reaction against someone else's idea.

I am in fact whole now.  I am no longer broken.  I never thought I would feel this way - ever.  I thought it was a feeling only people with normal families who didn't have 'issues' got to feel.

That is no small thing and if that means I don't get a certain job, so be it.  I doubt I would have gotten it broken either.  But now even if I have random feelings of failure, some sadness and some ego burn, at base I know I'm still OK.

I am also proud I let myself want the damn job even if I didn't know I would get it.  I was in fact terrified that I wouldn't get it because I wanted it so much, but then: I didn't get it.  And instead of my having wanted it making that disappointment harder, it somehow made it easier.  Why?  Because I was myself throughout the whole thing.  My sadness does not have to coincide with the emptiness of self-abandonment or, to be less poetic - bullshitting myself.

And now...I am quite tired so I'm off to sleep so I can get up and participate in some really lovely human activities tomorrow with my dear friends.

Blessings all.