The tears come streaming down your face when you lose something you can't replace

Sometimes I feel like I have a really good entry started in my head, and when I sit down to type, I can get a good first sentence out, maybe, then...Nothing.

I cleaned out a lot of drafts the other day - half formed thoughts that were never published, things about people I know that shouldn't be on the Internet, stories that should be told by someone who can tell a story. In other words, things that would be clever if they weren't written by me.

Sometimes it's just because I have nothing clever to say. Other times I have very clever things to say, but no clever way to say them. And then, sometimes, maybe there are things in the back of my mind that I should write about -- but I don't want to write about.

Like the unemployment thing. Maybe it would help if people knew how I feel right now. How I feel like it's a dirty word: "Unemployed." And how I feel dirty because of it. Or how clever synonyms like "in between jobs" no longer sound more clever. Instead, after a few months, they sound just as repulsive to me. Lately I feel like it's a label that I'm wearing on my lapel for everyone to see. Hello, my name is Unemployed. As though people in the supermarket on a Wednesday afternoon know.

I met someone at a party a few weeks ago, and after what I thought was a stimulating conversation about the hassle of finding a new apartment, we started talking about what we "do." He was talking about how he just starting his residency at a local hospital, and I became incredibly embarrassed and started talking really stupidly about how I'm "in-between jobs" (and I'm pretty sure I used air quotes and rolled my eyes. I don't remember if I explained how that was just the fancy way of saying "I collect unemployment checks" and then laughed nervously, but that's where it was headed). I was even more embarrassed when he excused himself to the other room, and at the time, I reasoned that it was the stink of "the unemployed" that drove him away, instead of my manic, nervous reaction to the question "what do you do?" Instead of rationalizing that he wasn't interested in speaking to me anymore because I was significantly younger than he was, or because of my attitude (and maybe my drunkenness), I reasoned that it was because I was an "untouchable."

I know I have such an unhealthy attitude about my situation right now, and I know it's not helping anything to be pessimistic and downtrodden, but what can I do about that? Will I feel better when I get a job? Am I doing permanent damage to my psyche? Even going to church makes me feel nervous, and why? Shutting myself up in my apartment certainly isn't going to help, so why do I do it?

I just don't know anymore. And I feel like such an uninteresting person these days.

And I don't know what to do about it, anymore.

[Currently Spinning: Coldplay - Fix You]