specimens of self [lifestyle] – Publish-Journal

To: hiring@jobcareerstuff

Subject: Re: Application Status 

Date Saved: November 9, 2025

“To be honest, I don’t actually care about the ‘synergy’ mentioned in the job description. I just wanted to know if there’s a version of my life where I don’t spend my twenties wondering where I went wrong. I’m attaching a portfolio that feels wrong because I’m trying to sound like a person who has it all figured out, but—”

—

The most trustworthy room that I personal is my drafts folder, the place the chairs are mismatched and the partitions had been by no means totally painted.

According to my Oma and Appa, I used to be a simple baby—quiet, content material in a stroller—till the second I began crying. Once I started, I may by no means appear to cease.

In elementary college, all the things appeared to make me cry. I might cry when my mother lectured my brother as a result of seeing another person upset made my chest harm. I might cry as a result of a automobile experience that ran on too lengthy would start to really feel unsafe. My dad and mom would get up nearly nightly to me standing of their doorway, shaking with some type of terminal unhappiness. I may by no means voice the explanations for why I reacted this manner, and as I grew up, the nursery-rhyme unhappiness become one thing sharper.

In highschool, I cried earlier than meals and after each remedy session or physician’s appointment. Never throughout them, although. I preferred the thought of a clear report, an ideal rating. I hated the thought of this a part of myself changing into documented and barely confirmed my face at college.

Freshman 12 months of school, I cried in my dorm each Wednesday evening. Thursdays, in sophomore fall. Never letting myself clarify, out of concern that my phrases can be misunderstood. Then, at the beginning of the spring semester sophomore 12 months, all of it stopped. All the unidentified knots in my throat abruptly felt extra like glee.

Looking again, I realise that it was as a result of I started to keep away from telling the reality. These deceptions weren’t socially scandalous. Rather, I crammed my message inbox with ghost texts, changing “i’m not doing well actually” with “i’m goooood, how was your weekend? :D.” Friendships had been maintained by not mentioning small grievances and shared silences blanketed a graveyard of conversations too deep, too exhausting to exhume.

When you cease letting your self be seen, you turn out to be a narrative instructed to somebody who doesn’t know the ending. This is how I ended up at a bus cease, wanting a stranger within the eye and handing him a lie as if it had been a present. I believe his title began with a T.

T was 65 years previous, born and raised in Rhode Island. He requested me if I used to be a pupil. I stated sure. He requested what I examine.

Furniture Design.

Wow, first I’m listening to about that type of factor. You make chairs?

I’ve.

John, this little lady makes chairs! Can you consider it? You gonna make a dwelling off doing that? I don’t understand how all that form of stuff works.

Maybe. I need to go into vintage restoration. I’m extra into fixing issues.

Well that’s even higher. You working but or simply learning? 

I’ll be working in California quickly.

Your dad and mom should be proud. 

Thank you.

T was the primary individual I instructed this excellent news to. Actually, I instructed him lengthy earlier than it even occurred. Let me clarify.

For me, strangers have all the time been the best to speak to, as a result of with strangers, something goes. I could be whoever I need to be that day. I’m by no means afraid of oversharing as a result of I’m probably not telling them about me, so it doesn’t actually matter, does it? I’ve been an structure pupil hoping to go overseas. I’ve been a movie main, aspiring to make documentaries about disappearing oceans and local weather change.

These are all lives that I ponder if I might have preferred to stay. In my journal, I name them “specimens,” failed variations of myself. Failed, not essentially in a detrimental manner, however as issues which could have been however weren’t. I used to spend so much of time mourning them. Perhaps these jagged truths had been momentary reliefs that simulated being heard.

My summer time earlier than junior 12 months came about in Boston on a sublease I couldn’t afford and a collection of shifts so far-off that my paychecks vanished into Uber rides residence. I used to be a ghost in my very own condo, preferring the disposable friction of a celebration to the heaviness of a possible reference to my roommates. First impressions had been blissful; second dates had been by no means within the image. It was simply a lot simpler to be a brand new individual each evening than to be the identical failing one each morning. I disliked the thought of letting anybody on to who I actually was as a result of truthfully, I didn’t even actually know myself.

Every second was fleeting. I by no means instructed anybody in regards to the yesterdays, nearly how excited I used to be for the tonights. Noise was important as a result of I bought bored simply, and I might put myself in harmful conditions only for the push, simply to keep away from the awkward silence that I felt once I was alone with myself. I dreaded actuality and selected thrill over suspense. Acting this manner offloaded some form of weight with out really dropping any burden.

Just over a 12 months in the past, round halfway by means of fall semester of my junior 12 months, the push wore out. All of my truths got here flooding out within the dorm room of a boy I had met hardly two months prior. There was no grand set off, simply the way in which he didn’t look away once I stumbled over a sentence. The feeling of security that comes with listening to the phrases “I want to know you. Every part of you, everything about you” was international to me. It took a 12 months into our relationship for me to cease crying. I instructed him I beloved him 4 months in, in addition to a number of moments in the past at the moment.

The concern of claiming the mistaken factor has all the time stored me from saying something in any respect, however I not really feel like I’ve to create a narrative to clarify myself as an individual. It takes a couple of minutes, typically nearer to an hour, however I can cry and communicate on the similar time now. Short sentences are greater than sufficient. “This hurts. I want to fix it.”

I believed I wished to take action many issues that might by no means find yourself taking place. I by no means anticipated that what I’ve and who I’m, now, would really feel so proper.

—

To: hiring@jobcareerstuff

Subject: Re: Application Status

Date Saved: February 12, 2026

“Dear Recruitment Team at Job Career Stuff,

In my drafts folder, there’s a model of this letter the place I admit that ‘synergy’ is a phrase I hardly ever use, and that my biggest concern is losing away my twenties. But the explanation I’m sending this model as an alternative is as a result of I’ve realised that my finest work occurs once I cease performing and begin fixing.

My background in furnishings design and my ardour for vintage restoration come from a really particular place: a deep respect for issues which were damaged however are price saving. Restoration requires a stage of honesty that almost all fashionable manufacturing ignores—you need to perceive the unique intent of the piece to ensure that the restore to be seamless.

I’m transferring to California quickly, not as a specimen of an individual who has all of it discovered, however as a craftswoman who excels at affected person execution, genuine communication, and figuring out structural weak spot. I’ve discovered that “I don’t know, but I will find out” holds much more worth than a refined lie.

I’ve hooked up my portfolio beneath. It represents the variations of my work that I’m most happy with, wherein the joints are tight and the end is true. I might love the chance to deliver that very same stage of grounded, trustworthy craftsmanship to Job Career Stuff.”

Best regards,

Olivia Moon