My great-aunt in Occupy Wall Street video

I haven't said much about Occupy Wall Street, because I am still processing my own job search, my own not having to go to Wall Street every day, and trying to figure out my career and my own steps, positive and negative, that have brought me to being 35 with what feels like no concrete education in how I currently make money or discernible job skills, only a passion that waxes and wanes. I know that's not true from having written down what I think my skills are on my resume, but still, at times when I look at that document it seems fraudulent, foolish, like I only got wherever I am, this crumbling, slippery non-place, by luck. I do work hard, I know that better than anyone, but I know my job right now is to work harder, think more sharply, look anywhere and everywhere, figure out exactly who I want to be and how to get to become that person. The first part of that equation is, I suspect, going to be the far greater challenge.

I stumbled upon Occupy Wall Street after buying office supplies at Staples the other day, hooks to hang up my coats that litter my floor, cork boards for stories and plots, a notepad because I like the feel of my pen on paper. That is where my focus is these days, if I'm lucky and not sleeping and moping. I'm not saying I don't care, I just am focused on resurrecting the mess I've made of my life. That is what unemployment (or self-employment) feels like for me: failure, even though I know it's not all personal failure.

I don't share the anger of the people I felt and saw at Occupy Wall Street, and truly am not educated enough to know about all the demands being made. Banks seem like a foreign institution, as someone who's declared bankruptcy and wasted three years and hundreds of thousands of dollars on law school, who's used to live paycheck to paycheck and now is trying to figure out where to go from here, whether NYC is a feasible or even desirable city to live in, whether I have the means to actually move should I find a new opportunity. I feel ancient as I face 36 in two very short weeks and, perhaps it's selfish, but so is writing, always. I never said I'm not selfish, and since all of my own financial quagmire is self-created, that is where my anger lies, and I'm using it to try to pursue and create new income-generating opportunities and, barring that, simply getting words down, rather than assuming, as I usually do, that they are pointless. That is my hurdle and, right now, the only one I can handle. That doesn't mean I'm not paying attention, only that that struggle feels removed from me trying to get and complete assignments, to make sure my books sell out their advances, to make sure I am a better person today than I was yesterday.

But that doesn't mean I'm not super proud of my great-aunt, the third person featured in this Occupy Wall Street video!