Failure

Today I feel like a failure. Actually, it's not just today; I've been feeling it for a while. I can't imagine why--perhaps because I haven't been doing anything worthy of note lately? I couldn't get into HUC, my summer internship consisted of helping lead services and having one blowout fight with the rabbi, my novel idea went nowhere, I'm a college grad living at home with my parents, I'm trying to carry on a long distance relationship, I have no friends here, I got relegated to being a sub rather than a real Sunday School teacher, and I've become estranged from Reform Judaism. Sure, I found a job, but I'm making diddley squat in tips, my hours keep getting cut back (to the point that I have to find another part time job now because I need to make more money than I am), I don't fit in, I feel like I'm in over my head, and my coworkers keep getting snappier and more tense as the weeks go by. The only unqualified success I had was meeting Richard's family, but I won't see them again for a year.

Now Mom is encouraging me to walk away from the job entirely and find something else, but I can't. Getting and keeping that job is the one thing that's keeping me from feeling like a complete failure at life--and I really can't afford to go down that path again, thanks. It's not fun right now, but it's keeping me relatively stable, and I need that. (And I like talking to the customers, at least.)

As for the future--well, let's just say I'm not at all confident anymore. Getting Richard through his grad school will be easy. But I've become convinced that getting me through mine will be a trick, if it happens at all. I would love to go to AJU and become a Conservative rabbi, but will I be able to afford it? And what the heck am I going to do if I can't?

Maybe I'm just feeling down because summer is over and I'm still here. Maybe the feeling will pass. But I really doubt it...and there's nothing I can do about it but keep repeating "less than a year to go, less than a year to go" to myself when nobody's listening. I'm pretty sure I can at least walk down the aisle successfully, provided that Mom hems my dress right. So that's something, right?

Right?