I could do that... really, I could

That's my most frequent feeling when I read through job postings these days. Because I honestly feel that I would be able to do many of the jobs I see listed. Retail, food service, administrative assistant, secretary, etc. the list could go on. But, I have no proof that I can do any of those things. Looking at my resume, people have no reason to believe I'm capable of much more than teaching working with costumes (and my ability to do one of those is shady at best).

No one wants you unless you've got the experience.
And how do you get the experience without a job?!
It's a vicious cycle.

And, what makes it worse, is I feel like I have no direction. This afternoon, it hit me that I have no idea of where I would like to be in 5, 10, 25 years. None. Frankly, what I'd like to be doing is singing, but that's a slow process at best and a pipe dream at worst. Because, again:

You have to have the experience to apply for graduate school and young artist programs.
And how do you get that experience outside of graduate school or young artist programs?!
Yet another vicious cycle.

Happy New Year?

I'd love to think that 2012 will be better than 2011. I wish I could believe it. That there would be fewer

• friends stabbing me in the back
  
• unwanted moves
• full-time jobs lost
• problems finding a car
• toxic relationships
• persons in positions of authority randomly going crazy
  
• weeks of work lost due to illness

Unfortunately, I'm not much of an optimist. Never have been. Of course, the fact that I begin the year having been forced to move back in with my parents with no car and no job doesn't help much. Nor does the fact that all I want to do is sing and I'm evidently not good enough/there aren't enough opportunities for that to be a possibility. Add in the fact that I'm not qualified to do much and the future looks even grimmer. By the fall I had quit thinking "things can't get worse" which is good considering they definitely continued to. I just don't know where the next blow will come from. It's like I'm running a gauntlet and can't even see the objects before they strike me. The next catastrophe could come in the area of

• work (hard since I've got nothing at the moment)
  
• living situation (although, I'm already at my parents' so it's hard to get worse unless I was actually homeless -- unlike "technically" homeless which I was last month)
  
• health (that was the "lightest" of my problems last year... "just" bronchitis which lasted a month, kept me out of work for two weeks, and left a cough which still lingers)
  
• friends (not something I like, but it is almost a relief when people show their true selves... the effects can be particularly unpleasant, however)

but there's no way of telling which of these (or something completely different) it will be.

I'm so sick of the "things will get better... this is just Calvary before Easter... blah blah blah..." crap that I've been getting from people (add 25 fail points if the person that says it contributes/has contributed to the disaster). Frankly, it's trite and makes me want to vomit: particularly when it's from people who aren't dealing with their whole life falling apart around them.

No, this is not a particularly positive way to start the new year. At least, hopefully, by expecting the worst, there's always a possibility that I will be pleasantly surprised. Right?