"This has been going on for years. I've rewritten my resume more times than I can count. Nothing works. Every rejection chips away at something I used to believe about myself. Something like worth."

I handed in a job application at a sandwich shop last week. There was a giant Now Hiring sign taped to the front window, so I walked in and, to my surprise, they handed me a paper application. I filled it out, smiled, and returned it to them.

They never called me.

I tell myself it's probably because I'm too old. Maybe it's because I didn't apply online, or because the kid behind the counter didn't scan my info into the system. I don't know. I only know that I was ready to make sandwiches for minimum wage, and nobody even wanted that from me.

I have a master's degree in interdisciplinary arts and decades of experience, both personal and professional. I speak two languages. As if any of that matters.

I've been told all my life that I'm smart, and yet here I am, chronically underemployed, invisible in the job market, and applying anywhere I can -- hardware stores, pet supply chains, and garden centers. No one writes back. No one calls.

"Please upload your résumé," I'm told. I do and it disappears into the algorithmic abyss, and I never hear from a human being.

I don't need a career. I need a paycheck. But the system seems to think I'm either aiming too low or not playing the game right, or worse, that I don't exist at all.

This has been going on for years. I've rewritten my résumé more times than I can count, tried leaving off my degree, tried playing up my "people skills," tried the QR codes and portals and ghost-job listings that don't lead anywhere. Nothing works. Every rejection chips away at something I used to believe about myself. Something like worth.

At one point, I thought maybe I had undiagnosed ADHD. Or social anxiety. Or something that could explain the gap between what I know I can do and how the world seems to view me. But mostly, I return to one haunting possibility: Maybe I'm just clueless. Maybe I've been clueless for years, and everyone else knows it except me.

That is, hands down, my greatest fear -- not failure, not poverty, not even loneliness: the idea that I might be fundamentally out of sync with the world, and not even aware of it.

Because here's the truth that nobody likes to talk about: being educated, competent and willing to work is no guarantee that you'll find work. Especially not in a system where hiring has become automated, impersonal and biased in a hundred tiny, invisible ways. Especially not in a country where being overqualified is treated like a liability, where aging disqualifies you from entry-level jobs, and where the tech used to "streamline" applications often ends up gatekeeping the people who need the job the most.