The job situation (formerly named "Where do I begin?"

I've been a terrible blogger. I can't believe so much time has gone by since my last post. I don't even know where to begin with updating, but I guess I can start with what has been some of the biggest challenges I'm facing so far as a person and as a parent.

On February 13th (give or take a day), I went back to work. I applied for a senior graphic design position with an Advertising firm, and after jumping through many hoops, I got the job. The catch was that the employer actually hired two people (myself and another guy) for the same position (although he kept us both on freelance terms, so not actual employees), but didn't guarantee a position to either of us. He basically had us competing against each other, and there was no competition from the get-go, I was never given a chance to show what I could do, the other guy was. From the day I started there, the other guy was working on actual design projects, I was given production work (aka: plopping text in documents that were already designed). The entire time I was there, that is all I did, so at the end of it all, there was no opportunity for me to really 'shine', I never designed anything.

Last Friday I was "laid off" due to lack of work. Work had slowed and I knew the end was coming, however, the real reason I was "laid off" was because there never was a possibility for me to be hired. As I was packing up my things the morning he laid me off, he basically accidentally revealed that he had no intentions of truly hiring me in the first place, he just needed someone to do production work while they were busy.

Though I could sit here and say that going to work for this a-hole was a gigantic waste of time, it really wasn't. He's a douche for 'leading me on', he could have just told me that there was no chance for a position, but that he wanted me to work contract, and I would have been fine with that, and not been hopeful... but I digress. I choose to look at the POSITIVE side of having gone back to work.

Being off for a whole year with my daughter was wonderful, and having to go back to work was one of the hardest things I've ever done in my life. The first two weeks of leaving my daughter in daycare (even though she was in a wonderful daycare with my aunt), I bawled my eyes out EVERY SINGLE DAY after I got her home and she went to bed. The hours of this job were crappy, and we only have one car. I wasn't getting home until 6, and DD goes to bed at 7. I was seeing my baby 1 hour + the car ride to work in the morning, when DH would drive around the whole city dropping everybody off (our daycare was across the city) just so that I could spend time with her. I felt like a horrible mother, a horrible person.... the whole experience was just HORRIBLE.... BUT...

As time wore on, things got better, I adapted, we all adjusted in to a schedule, DD was super happy at daycare, and thriving.. doing so well.

Now that I'm home again, I still can't escape a mother's guilt. Now that DD is home with me all day and we can't afford to even put her in daycare part time (because she really loves her daycare friends), I feel bad because all she has all day is me, and I know she must miss her little friends. I feel like her being with me will impede all the learning that she was doing with the other daycare children. I teach her, and I bring her to the park, and I try to give her all the things she got at daycare, but it's hard to find other children for her to play with. We have a really shoddy bus system where I live that only runs at peak hours, and we only have one car which DH takes to work because he works pretty far from where we live. I'd love to find a playgroup somewhere to take DD to a few times a week just so she can play with other children.

The other thing that I feel guilty about is being depressed around DD. I'm not happy about the job situation, but what is worse is that I have a great resume and portfolio, and I've applied to a million jobs and am getting nowhere. I only lost the job I had last Friday, but I've been job searching since January. I'm not trying to 'toot my own horn' here, but it's never taken me this long to find a job... EVER. My industry is in the toilet right now though, and everything is contract. If I try to work for myself, I just don't know if I can make enough money. If I take on jobs that I need day-time hours to work on, that means I'd have to put DD in daycare, but I can't work while she's running around, and that means that I need to make at least enough to pay for said daycare, and in general the whole working for myself thing just scares the living daylights out of me.

That being said, as I continue to job search, I'm thinking more and more of what my backup plan is going to be if I just can't find anything in my field. Do I go work at the grocery store evenings and weekends so I can care for DD during the day and never see my husband again? Do we sell our house and move in to something cheaper so that we can live off of one income and I do... ????? Do I attempt to start a home day-care so that I can care for DD and make a living at least until DD goes to school, then go back to school in three years to either update all the skills for my industry (which will hopefully be in a better state in 3 years), or change careers altogether (even though I have no idea what else I would do)? Maybe I stick with doing part-time contracts in the evening/weekends and hope to hell that I can drum up enough business to keep us afloat?

Though I have some faith that I will find something, or some solution eventually, living in limbo is hard. I was well-adjusted to being at work again. The initial was crappy, but by the end of it, I had the hang of it. I know that it will all work out again, but I'm in a mourning period... One that has continued since I was laid off from my job before my parental leave. I still miss that job, it was so perfect, and now I'm back to dealing with the horse poop that is job searching in a very tough job market.

Okay, so I've gone on and on about this job thing. Wow. I'm sorry, but I guess I really had/have a lot on my mind about it. I hate to sound all 'woe is me', and I hate that I use the word 'hate', and that I'm so negative when I'm trying to be positive. This is definitely not the best version of myself, and I am really glad that DD is young enough not to understand any of it. I am as happy as I can possibly be with her, and she reminds me every day of why the things in life are worth fighting for.

ETA: Since this post became all about my crappy job situation (or lack thereof), I have aptly named it so that I can put all the happy things with happy pictures of my beautiful girl in a happy post. :)