My Apology to My Readers

I'm not going to take a lot of time with this, but I feel I owe it to you, particularly those of you who are regular readers of this blog.

Ordinarily, I try to write something every day. I will admit, my reasons for doing so are not entirely altruistic. I happen to be one of the millions of unemployed Americans — I've been unemployed since around Labor Day — and I've been trying to use my blog as a tool for my job search. I've been hoping to land something that would give me the chance to put my degrees in journalism to good use.

But I'm interested in my country and my world, and I like to be able to express my opinions in this setting.

Anyway, over the weekend, I found what I thought was the perfect job opening for me. It was an adjunct journalism teaching job at a nearby community college.

Now, when one has been out of work as long as I have, one is apt to have had some disappointments. And, I will concede, I have had my share. I have learned, among other things, that, because so many people are looking for work these days, employers can pick and choose. If you don't meet every single requirement, you're likely to be passed over. There doesn't seem to be any room for learning curves.

But, in this case, I could go down the list of requirements and confidently check off each requirement. I felt there was a good chance that I could at least get an interview, and those have been hard to come by.

Even so, when I found this job opening on Saturday, I didn't apply for it immediately. I sought the input of everyone I could think of — and they all encouraged me to apply for the job. I wouldn't call myself a devoutly religious person, but I have been going to church since February. And, this past Sunday, I went to church — we have communion on the first Sunday of each month in the Methodist church — and I prayed about this job during the service.

And I concluded that it was what I should do. All signs indicated that.

So, when I got home, I went online to submit my application. But, when I clicked on the link, nothing happened.

I fired off an e–mail to a woman in the H.R. department. She interviewed me for a web writing job back in April, and she had encouraged me to keep looking for job leads in the community college district in the future, even though I didn't make the cut for the second round of interviews for the other job. I felt she might be able to explain to me what the problem was. I didn't know if the job board had jumped the gun (it was, after all, a holiday weekend) or what.

While I was waiting for her reply, I tried again on Monday. This time, I got a message saying, "Sorry, this job is no longer available."

A few hours later, after some e–mail exchanges, I was told that the job posting was an error. Apparently, there had been such an opening but it was filled.

Anyway, for the last 30 hours or so, I simply haven't felt motivated to write about anything.

There have been a lot of things to write about, and maybe I will get back in gear tomorrow and feel like writing about the events of the day. Today, though, I have just been overwhelmed by a feeling of hopelessness, a sense of futility.

Things may not be better tomorrow or next week or next month, but I hope to be back on track after a good night's sleep.

I feel that I owe it to my readers.

I know that I owe it to myself.