It's been hard the last few months. Unemployment is running out. Unemployment IS running out. Everyone says that it's going to be just fne...but Bear Stearns just crashed.

I send out resume after resume. I get calls from recruiters for positions one day and emails the next stating that I've been passed over.

I've been in my apartment for over 2 years and always something came through. When I got laid off at the bank I worked as a temporary secretary for over a year for a Partner and the firm said that they'd definately probably hire me on. But after a year the Partner interview three women and hired one. And I was never given any consideration.

And then I went on unemployment. And I scrambled to meet the bills. I had two roommates at one point. The first insisted that we be "friends" like on the sitcom, but when he kept asking if I was even working, etc. I knew it had to end. And I thought the firm was hiring me, so I kicked him out.

The second roommate had come from Connecticut and was from money but gave it all away. His big thing was to drink a litre of alcohol and then tell me what low birth I'd come from. And then he spoke about different ways he'd put an end to me.

I'm not making this stuff up!

And so I changed the locks on him. He wasn't paying his fair share and I'd had just about enough.

And then I was finally and at long last alone. I had enough from my inheritance from grandfather to get me through for a little while, and good old unemployment. But then world, the worst happened, I got a new neighbor down the stairs beneath me who was going through a terrible divorce. He came up constantly, cried constantly and was never letting up.

By this time I'd gotten another temp job, but I was going in to work everyday exhausted because of this nuisance beneath me. I warned the landlord that I'd had enough. This guy was never ending. And when I didn't response he'd bang on my door or I could hear him on the phone all night long talking to everyone.

He was on drugs.

He was smoking something downstairs and it filtered through the floor boards into my bedroom every night. And I was a zombie in the morning and not really knowing why.

I went to work and screwed up. Eventually I was let go. Back to unemployment.

Finally the guy downstairs was sent to rehab by his seargent. And he was out of the apartment.And me, I was out four months. I'd gone through Four months of hell.

And now what?

So it's Christmas time and forget about finding any work. I began to buckle down and improve my skills on a particular software. Then I set up interviews with great hopes.

No jobs.

One job came along on the third shift. It was a temporary to permanent spot. This was in January. I took the light rail to the Path station. But while I was there, a big many followed me on to the train. The tracks were vacant. No one anywhere. This man followed me around.

I was very scared.

I finally lost him and then heard him mugging some executive on the track platform on the other side of me.

I left. Took the light rail home. I told the agency, but they said the firm wouldn't pay car service for anyone who lived in New Jersey.

HOw is this my life?

I studied harder. I took more tests. But once again passed over.

And every month it's getting harder and harder to make the rent. I'm selling things online.

Finally I get a call about a job for an investment company. It pays well and will take me into next year. I'll be home free. I'm excited. I feel like God is finally answering my prayers and I'll be alright and it will all be good again and I can do everyday things like see the dentist, or go to the gym, or just have a normal, everyday kind of life like I see others having on television.

And I run by my skill set with the recruiter at the agency, and she says that I'll be just fine and all I have to do is go in for a one hour interview and then, I'll be okay, and alright and we'll do brunch. And it's Easter and I"m thinking, "Thank God in Heaven."

But that's not where the story ends my friends.

I leave my mother's house after a lovely brunch of ham and eggs and sausages and the like. I'm a happy guy. I meet some friends at my apartment and we go out for a beer and celebrate life. I'm a happy guy. I have saved the proverbial farm.

The next day I get up and shower and I'm excited. I put on my best suit and take the bus into NYC. I get to the interview fifteen minutes early.

The guy I'm supposed to meet comes out to greet me. He says that they'll do a "quick" assessment in Document Handling Services and then he will meet with me.

Wait a minute? ASSESSMENT? No one mentioned assessment.

I chilled a bit. I thought perhaps this was just basic skills.

A nice Asian man comes out and directs me to a computer and says that they are going to give me a short one hour test. I take a look at the exam. It is filled with software I do not know!

I look up at him, and..just trying to save face, I tell him that I"m on a lunch hour and didn't know that I'd have to take a test (one that I knew only part of how to do, mind you). He says that I can always "reschedule" to come back when I have more time. He then goes on to say that even after I take the test there will be more interviews required. They will look over all test results and then determine who they'd like to see again.

Great. So the agency that sent me there told me a  bevy of lies, probably because they can't get anyone in there. They made it sound like it was shear cake, easy. But this wasn't easy. I was just given a chance to take a wicked hard test and then get "evaluated" for a temporary assignment.

Tell me how good the economy is again Mr. President? It isn't good. I remember a time when the agency could just send you in. You didn't need to jump through several hoops just to get a job. You didn't need to take hours and hours of tests.

But in this day and age there are more people out there than there are jobs available and agencies have to "trick" you into do the whole circus routine for these companies.

I left there livid.

I tried not to spiral down into a self-destructive cloud. I went to a few thrift stores and looked for some shirts I knew I could make a bundle online selling. Some sold for more that 8k which would give me a nice trip to Rome to forget all of this.

But I was in a cloud. I felt like a complete and utter failure. With my big stupid grin I walked into a trap.

After walking endlessly I stopped in a bar and stayed out until 6am.

I was very very very depressed.

I met up with a guy I'd known for a few years, but hadn't seen in awhile. He said he'd take me home. He said that he didn't want me to be alone like this.

We took a taxi. I paid the 60.00 but I was glad for the company and to get back home.

He stayed overnight in the back room.

The next day he tells me that he has a slight heroin problem. Slight? If he doesn't get drugs soon he'll get very sick. I call my one of my friends up who knows about such things and she tells me to get him out of the house and on the bus. The kid is doing five bags a day. She says that this is some serious business.

Marvel (the guy) tells me that he needs 25.00 for drugs, plus I have to get him on the bus...3.25. I rummage through my pockets and find him the money and get him out and on the bus. It seems like an eternity before the number 10 comes to take him to Jersey City. He has already called his dealer to meet him when he gets off the Path train.

A sad business.

I thought I had it badly, but then I meet my old friend from High School and realize that his addiction is worse. He's on the street now. He doesn't look like it. But he's living like an animal. He's in animal survival mode.

Things are bad for me, but I can get a job, and changed what's going on and improve my life. But an addiction like this is horrible.

After he leaves I feel a bit shaken up. I had too much to drink. You know how bar crowds are. At first everyone is super nice, but then as they get drunk they become mean and disagreeable. And then the world turns cold.

I called my friend Denny who's been so kind and she came over again and got me some Chinese.

I told her that I'd have to move back with my mother for awhile. She cried. She didn't want me to leave or give up the apartment. "but we were supposed to go swimming and play tennis this summer."

Yes we were, once upon a yuppie dream.

But it all turned horribly wrong. And the free-lance creative is left spending ends.

Denny helped me pack up my sooned to be repossessed car. I wrote a note to the landlady giving her my thirty days notice. I called a "clean out" man who will come and take whatever it is that I leave behind and then give me some modest amount of cash.

I lined the ducks up.

And I drove all the way up into the hills and woods where the air is clean, leaving what is there, when there is nothing, behind and holding on to a dream that someday, one day, it will be alright again.

It's hard to realize you're suffering the "failure of a dream." You want to cry and say goodbye, but you hang on, because as long as you are alive and breathing, things can change, and what was left undone, can then be done...and that happy day you've dreamed about can have a way of coming true.

unless.

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