After last week's pity party, I came to the realization that I have been handling things all wrong. Instead of letting my current situation (of being an overeducated and unemployed professional squatter) take me down, I need to have a more Sisyphean approach.

The seemingly insurmountable obstacles can be broken down into simple tasks: I am to get up every day and put forth the effort look for a job for a few hours a day. Then move on to the next task: studying for the GRE.

Then I'll tackle research questions and design and polishing my writing samples.

After this task, I'll move on to the next, and to the next and to the next...until I get a job. Luckily, this will not be my fate forever — it only feels that way.

My biggest adversary throughout this process is myself. I overanalyze almost everything, and I'm too harsh when things don't work out my way. If ever I can figure out how to keep my inner taskmaster at bay, it will be smooth(er) sailing from that point on.

Something will come to pass from my diligence — I am too stubborn to be beaten by this.

As Morrissey of the Smiths sang, "Please, please, please, let me get what I want...this time."

Though the lyrics to the song of the same title are a bit dramatic, they're fitting, given the current state of my life.

It has been a rather long time since I have had anything that even moderately resembled smooth sailing. I am trying my damndest to not let everything get to me, but there's only so many times that a person can get kicked in the teeth before they stop smiling.

Anyone who has had an unyielding string of bad luck knows exactly what I mean. Even the brightest glimmer of hope and happiness seem to be overshadowed by impossibility and hardship these days. I don't mean to be a Negative Nancy — especially since this goes against every fiber of my being. But I am tired. Fucking tired.

All I want to know is, When does the time come to harvest the fruits of my labor and relish in its bounty? There is a point in time when this is possible, right? If there isn't, then what's it all about?

I need a vacation, but can't afford one. I need a break from reality, but those don't exist. I need a dose of happiness that lasts for more than a few hours and isn't overshadowed by the impending doom that seems to be riding shotgun to that very happiness.

I need a serious reprieve from all that is my life right now.

It seems the tide may be turning, but I want to be careful not to rock the boat — or do I? I have recently been given the keys to a friend's apartment in New York City.

My friend Wendy is taking advantage of the summer to visit with her family in North Carolina, before the next semester starts in the fall. This couldn't have happened at a better time for me, as I needed to be closer to the city than my upstate digs would allow.

During the past week, I actually was called in for several interviews. Ordinarily, interviews are not on my list of favorite things to do. But being that things are so tight with the economy, I am happy to be at the point where I am getting callbacks.

But now I am faced with a dilemma.

After one four-hour marathon interview, I was offered a job.

After a half-marathon, two hour interview, I was not offered a job, but am optimistic about my chances.

What I don't like is the wait — two to three weeks while they interview the remaining candidates.

Do I take the job offered to me, or do I wait to see if I am "the right fit" for the other organization's program.

Do I go for the job that is something I really want to do? Or do I go for the job that would offer me a definite paycheck?

Decisions, decisions...

In a conservative town in Nebraska, Sara learned many lessons from her relationship and her divorce. "Trust your gut,” she says. “When you become a mom you have to do what’s best for your kid.”

Some people think you should put your husband first, she says, “but if you’re in a family situation that will negatively impact your kid, you have to take care of them. You’re responsible and at some point your motherly instincts kick in and you have to what needs to be done.”

You also, of course, have to take care of yourself. If she had stayed with the marriage, she says, “I would be the mother to two people instead of just one. He would be very happy. I would work outside the home” — in the Air Force — “take care of the domestic duties and bills, and he would be free to do what he wanted to. I could have dealt with the situation, but I wouldn’t be happy."

On the other hand, being on your own, she says, can be tough. “Dating sucks with a child,” she says.

And then there is the regret: “You always worry that you could have done something to make it work... could I have done this or that, tried harder... any number of things. You’re going to second guess yourself. So know that that will happen, and it will be hard and trying, especially if you work, because you don’t get a break.”

Eventually, she says, it pays off.

The secret to making it through a divorce in the Midwest is to find a good support system. In her case, that was not her home church, which shunned her, even though she was a children's ministry leader there.

She felt the church thought she was a bad example to the kids. "I was asked to take a break from any church ministry. It was like, 'You are divorced so now you should rethink things.' "

She found a new church with a more liberal mindset and credits the congregation with helping her through the rough time.

First thing you learn, at least the first thing I learned, about being a single mom: it’s hard, almost impossible. I signed the lease for my new apartment on my 10th wedding anniversary. Let’s just say I’m a deadline-driven kind of girl, and after years of thinking “I can be broke, and alone all by myself,” it hit me, my deadline was 10 years. I had to get out.

That was two years ago. At the time, my daughters were 4 ½ and 21-months, and PBS had just aired a documentary called “P.O.V – Waging a Living.” The film looked at four people, three of them single moms, all working full-time and none making enough to make ends meet.

How’s that for a timely glance into the crystal ball?

One by one their stories debunked the American Dream, which is work hard and you’ll get ahead. One-quarter of the adult workers in this country have dead-end jobs paying less than the federal poverty level for a family of four. That’s 30 million people.

There was the 41-year-old waitress and mother of three young kids who made $2.13 an hour and sometimes paid more than 90 percent of her nightly tips to the babysitter. Yep, right there with you, sister. My gig was working nights in the sports department of a local newspaper, but I didn’t make much. The one night a week I both had the kids and had to work, I paid their sitter a buck an hour more than my hourly wage. Figure in commute time and those shifts cost me $10.

The apartment I picked was small for the price, one bedroom, but it has plenty of green space for the kids to play, and trees to climb. And the selling point, location, was that it was smack in the middle of my three tightest girlfriends’ houses. Five blocks in either direction to two of them.

When you divorce, everyone and their Aunt Nellie tell you to go where you have the strongest support. In other words, make sure you are living in the right village, because it’s going to help you raise your kids.