Got an email yesterday afternoon saying the decision was to go to someone with more 'corporate' experience.

While I could rant about various reasons someone else was picked instead of me, a deeper sense that something else has to come about - and not in a corporate environment - is beginning to flower.

All through 2008, while unemployed, I've had a fairly steady stream of freelancing jobs, and as I type this, am in the middle of 2 fairly large projects.

When I'm NOT doing graphic design work, I'm still designing things that I truly love. Rather than bore you with descriptions, I will someday soon announce my Etsy shop displaying my work.

Those of you who follow my posts have read about my endeavors in this. For those of you who don't, Etsy is a site for all things handmade. I plan to sell my items there.

Just spoke w/a good designer friend who encouraged me to follow the thing that makes me happiest and focus on that. One of my beloved instructors, also a friend, said the same thing. They both said that I have several niches and explore them to the max.

So when I'm not on the computer station, vectorizing images, I'm at my desk drawing and watercoloring. My main love is designing greeting cards and teaching mixed media techniques.

I applied at the City of South Pasadena to teach spring classes beginning in March. This will generate a small income and be a springboard for teaching at the Art Center later on.

Being middle-age, I was working in the corporate field of aerospace when the first computers were introduced. Prior to that, I actually 'cut + pasted' images and text the long way, i.e., literally.

Over the years, I exhausted whatever computer languages we had to learn (within the aerospace environment) - primarily the Microsoft platform. When I was laid off and went back to school, I learned a little bit of the Adobe platform, but they assumed every student already knew the basics.

The learning curve was HUGE for me. The Adobe platform is just different enough from the Microsoft platform where you still need to know the rudiments in order to apply the multidimensional applications. If you're not a techie or someone who was raised on computer interaction, you have to work pretty hard to straddle both knowledges.

Think of it as being able to speak Spanish but learning how to speak French. Though similar, it's the differences that are capital in learning proficiency.

Many instructors my age at the design school were having to take digital classes at night to keep up with their students. Some resented the fact that graphic design is becoming more and more rooted in technologies that continue to change. Also, they are anchored in practices that are the old school way of achieving the same result. It's like doing long math.

Anyway. Here I am, stressing on learning applications that I really don't want to learn, feeling like on another level, it's a waste of time, yet knowing that if I'm going to continue freelancing, it would behoove me to conquer basics. But, some would argue, even the basics seem daunting.

Deep breath. I haven't cried yet from the email rejection note, although when I think about it, it gets caught in my throat.

I suppose when you've heard the words, "We decided to go w/another designer", though it feels like a crushing blow, it proposes an opportunity to 'pick oneself up, dust oneself off, and start all over again' - as the song goes.

Maybe having heard this at least 6 times in this last year, I'm getting more resilient. Or maybe I can take heart b/c so many people have lost jobs, can't get jobs, and all of us stuck in the middle of an economic downturn. I don't know.

I do know that my pride's been kicked, thinking that with 2 skill sets, I could nail a position.

Yet, as my wise mother, close friends, and maybe a scoche of intuition tells me: It's not like I have no wherewithal to make money. I can still create beautiful things. There will always be a market to buy as long as there's a market to sell. There'll always be opportunities to explore and ways to get around this.

But I know something else that proposes an immediate challenge. I know I need to go THROUGH this and learn whatever lesson is at hand in order to survive and even grow.

So for those of you who wished me well, thank you. I get a sense of support from many of you, and that's more than what others get. I feel for those who have no alternative way of employing themselves in order to survive.

Le Chaim! I suppose?