Happy, Sad and Somewhere Inbetween

(Right after posting this, I went back and read my last post. Funny how easy it is to go up and down and back and forth....)

I'm still in limbo. 12 years of "life" under my belt since high school (I know, not long in the grand scheme of things, so if you have more than that, feel free to laugh at me), 1 year of travel, 1 year of work, 5 years of university and 5 years of trying to figure out what the hell comes after that. I have a great husband, a great little house (well, depending on which state of renovation it's in at any given moment), great family, great friends, a great church and a great God. Life should be great...? So why do I feel so discontent with the day-to-day process of life?

It boils down to one "tiny" little thorn in my side...but yet something that affects most moments of the majority of most days. My JOB. I feel like I've spent the last 12 years in jobs that are just to "get me by" until a "real" job comes along. Jobs that often don't pay enough to keep life from being stressful in the finance category. Jobs that require me to have other jobs to keep ends meeting, even if just barely. At the end of the day, all I want is to have ONE job. Just ONE at at a time. I am tired of having my hands in so many pots, I feel like a juggling act.

Last year I took a "break" from teaching, focused on my piano lessons and subbed a little bit. It took the stress off to really only have one job. But ends did NOT meet, and now I'm paying for it by being back to the FOUR job routine.

Why don't I just go get a teaching job, you ask? Why not? That is a very good question. I'm trying. And I'm so ready to give up. We've been here for four years, Aaron is in his fifth year of teaching at this school. That means I've been subbing (and contract teaching here and there) in the division for four years. For the first three, I would apply for jobs as they came up, usually got an interview, but there was always someone from the community who was just finishing university, or someone's niece or third cousin twice removed that needed a job. Fine, I understand. It's frustrating, and not entirely fair, but I guess that's how a small, cliquey town like this works. That was for the first three years.

This is year four. I applied this year and got NOTHING. Not even one interview. That worries me. There were some other situations where strings could have been pulled for me, that have been pulled several times in the past years for other people, even to get an interview...but nothing. I don't understand. Clearly SOMETHING is going on. The question is "what?" And going about getting the answer is where I feel stuck.

Is this just small town people doing what they do? Am I "stale dated" as far as the hiring people are concerned? Did I say something to make someone mad? Have I done something that makes me a liability for the school division?...................Is this God? If it is any of these reasons, except the last, I feel some need to find the answer...to get a reason "why." But if it IS God, and this is His way of telling me something, teaching me something, it seems it would be somewhat...rebellious (for lack of a better term) to push to find human answers.

So do I push, or do I relax, and see what God might be trying to teach me, or where He might be trying to lead me? I guess after all that typing, the answer seems kind of obvious. But that doesn't make it easy.