Fallen From Grace

Taking Back Our Power

The world may have been my oyster and I could do whatever I wanted but for now I was jobless and although I had this chance to do whatever I wanted - I needed a job. So I wasn't waiting around and parking my ass on the sofa watching YouTube videos or what was happening with Meghan Markle because after the moment of oh my gosh I'm out of a job I had to focus on me. So, I went up town and found the job centre (as it took a while, because they kept on changing location) and I explained I was out of a job to a nice lady behind a table and I had to explain I had mosaic down syndrome because I was explained to get a specific kind of form to be able to get the right kind of help and then I took all these forms to my Mom because from this point I didn't know what I was doing and there were certain numbers to ring that would set the wheels in motion but I couldn't do this, they needed to hear from my career. So I had to go to Mom's for her to be able to help me and we could work together. To be fair she did most of the work because there were certain numbers that needed ringing and getting the wheels in motion, plus understanding some of the technical terms that even Dad would have helped Mom with and it wasn't long before we started to have a selected representation to help find a job. We were assigned a David, he sounded like a nice man but the only problem was Mom had gone down this list of jobs with him and made it sound like we were only looking for shop work when there could have been other opportunities for me like working in small cafés and other avenues.

"She can't work in a café," Mom had said, shaking her head. "She wouldn't be able to do that because she won't be able to cope and she will faint."

"This job is just pouring drinks and selecting cake from the desert stand," he started to explain the job situation and I reckoned I could probably do that.

"But if she has a funny turn when she had a hot drink in her hand..."

"Oh well..."

"Sometimes with the steam if it gets into her eyes it can make her go light headed."

Okay, I wasn't that bad. Yes, that could happen but it was only for a split second, or I learned to look away like if I made a cuppa tea at home or something.

"And they have these machines that give off a lot of steam as soon you press a handle."

"I understand."

I think he pressed for a retail shop coming up on his news feed about a shoe shop.

"But they'd get her up ladders to find shoes," Mom said.

"And you don't want that if she faints."

Mom agreed and I had to agree to that. Plus, I seamed to have a thing with ladders going up above my head. I wouldn't go up the attic at my own house, it was something about going up ladders specifically that gave me the heebie-jeebies. It was the worry I'd fall down, that I'd miss a step and I just told myself I couldn't do it. I'd climb the first few stairs, panic and then my knees would go. It was so strange. I had this feeling as a kid, I'd climb a few rungs even if I was told to leave well alone and look up to the big black hole and I could never do it.

David suggested a few more jobs I could try going for ringing up and applying for and that he would ring back in a week's time on Tuesday roughly eight o clock. There was being on time but then there was Carol time which meant if I had to be somewhere with her or do something I had to be an hour earlier. That meant next Tuesday I would have to be at Mom's for around seven and way before eight. I applied for a fashion shop up town for sixteen hours, I inquired at an unlocal newsagents and I went for a job at a petrol station, and because there were a bit of a shopping section inside of it with a bakery, selling bread and cakes and then other shop floor items like rice and beans, chocolate and cards the usual items that would be at a petrol shop they practically told me I'd have the job with my experience and it was a real let down after being promised when I got no call back to say yay or neigh after feeling so sure I'd get it. I didn't understand myself because the lady who took me for the interview was helping me putting down all the right answers to things the employers would want to see so I didn't understand.