The Ferritin Secret Part I

April 2013... on a Monday...

"Now don't go and have some sort of existential crisis."  She picked up on my hesitancy, and continued to try and sell me on a job I wasn't so certain about.  She was a job recruiter in New York, and she had me in mind to work as an administrative assistant at a hedge fund company.  I thought we'd be discussing at least 12 potential job possibilities and she only had 1 - 1 that I wasn't all that interested in. The pay was decent, but $20,000 less than I had anticipated, and although I knew I could do the job well, if I was going to take a job I wasn't excited about, I wanted to at least be paid enough to pay off my grad school loans within a year or two.  (I'm at $30,000 plus 6.8% interest rate.)

As she tried to entice me with the $20 a day lunch money the company offers its employees (which sounded like a weight gaining plan), I tried to recall the meaning of existential crisis.  I knew it had something to do with freaking out with where you are at in life, but I was uncertain of the specifics.  As the woman (a Reed College graduate) continued on to tell me how this job would be a great way for me to get settled back in the city, I noted I should look up existential crisis later on to make sure I fully understood what she was telling me not to go and do.

Dictionary.com says, "An existential crisis is a moment at which an individual questions the very foundations of his or her life: whether his or her life has any meaning, purpose or value.^[1] This issue of the meaning and purpose of existence is the topic of the philosophical school of existentialism."

I think her warning was 20 minutes too late, because before our meeting, as I waited in the corner office on the 23rd floor, I took a moment to look out the window and stare at the city streets below.  As I took in the tiny taxis and miniature people on ground level, I noted, I was staring the same distance the girl fell out the window and to her death in the building where I had lived and worked with college students.

As I took my seat behind the table, and pulled out my planner and pen, I considered, really, I'd like to help save lives with whatever it is that I do next.  If only I didn't have grad school debt from Fuller Seminary, I wouldn't even be considering such a position working as an administrative assistant.  I knew my gifts were as such that I could be starting up my own non-profit.  BUT I feel paying off my student loan debt takes priority to my dreams and ambitions.  Then again, so does my health.  I seemed to be getting somewhat better over the course of the winter months, but since the end of March, I seemed to be relapsing.  Was I even healthy enough to get a full time job and be back in New York City?  And why was my health still poor - what was wrong with me?