I'm having a rough week. I know that life is not fair, but I really don't like it very much when it's not fair to me.
There, I'll just say it, and then proceed with my whiny post, and you can choose to read or to politely navigate away, somewhere cheerier.
I've started my new job, and it's going well, but still filled with all the uncertainties and flailing that come along with a new job. But Monday morning, I checked my email, and there was another email from the agency which is administering the DMH stipends. Before I opened it, I was wondering how much longer the meeting (see post below) had been postponed for. But then I opened it, and the news was much, much worse. My joking prediction to Goat was right. There's no money, they wrote, and boom, poof, the stipend I was "awarded" is gone.
The stipend amounted to about 25% of the salary I'd be earning this year, and a large reason I felt comfortable accepting the job at this salary is because I was counting on the stipend money. I'm torn between wanting to just move on with life, chuck it up to a case of Life's Not Always Fair, practice some of that Christian forgiveness... and wanting to figure out if I can sue their pants off. Really, I'm sure I will arrive at an option somewhere in between, but mostly this week I just feel really kicked in the stomach. The agency administering the program had never indicated that the funding wasn't already secured and guaranteed from the DMH. How could they have promised us money that they knew wasn't there yet, without telling us that part? The kicker is that one stipulation of receiving the funds was that we find employment with a DMH agency within 90 days of graduation... so all of us wanting to be compliant with our end of the bargain had already accepted and started jobs before we found out there's no money. I don't know if I have any recourse against the agency who offered us the stipends, but I feel like I can't quite let it rest that all I got was an email of "sincere apology" that the money I was counting on didn't exist.
I also started apartment hunting this week, and realized for the first time how much LA really costs. I guess I've been extensively sheltered from the cost of living here; having lucked out on a huge apartment for really reasonable rent for the last two years. I went to go view a couple of studio apartments in my price range, and they were in neighborhoods that even I wouldn't live in (and up until now I thought I would live just about anywhere).
I know I'll be OK, but I just feel a whole mess of icky things this week... angry, self-righteous, weepy, indignant, cynical, hopeless. Honestly, I'm feeling a little despondent that I have a Master's degree and I'm worrying about affordable housing. Will I be able to live, and eat, and occasionally take a weekend trip? Yes. No problem. But even though I do, somehow, still think this will all work out just fine, and I will like (maybe even love?) my job (can you put a price on that?), I catch myself wondering, this week, if I made a poor decision.
This is when Anne Lamott comes in handy, right?
