I am currently in the tunnel, the space between good interviews and solid meetings, between conversations about potential opportunities and opportunities with, well, actual potential. Nothing is definite and there are no commitments, no promises—and still no paycheck—begging the questions, "what to do now?" and "how do I feel?"

Tom Petty said waiting is the hardest part, and it often is, but when it comes to this moment in my re-employment process and my place on the path, I respectfully disagree. I am deciding to make this waiting period, "my tunnel," what I choose. 

Of course, it can be ugly, fraught with anxiety and extreme fantasies of the negative outcomes. Fears that nothing comes to fruition and everything remains the same except that it'll be worse, and that the end of the line is here and it's time to convince someone to let me type and file for $10 an hour, wear a green apron and make lattes or put all my stuff in an old Nordstrom's shopping bag and find a corner. Make that a bag from Nieman—if I'm going to be the ultimate Westchester bag lady I might as well go all the way.

By the way, does anyone have a bag from Nieman Marcus I can use instead? Even back in my gainfully employed days I never shopped at such obnoxious and ridiculously overpriced stores. 

But I digress.  I am not in an "about to be homeless" state of mind. Quite the contrary. Each day I do with joy the things I anticipate I won't be able to do once I step, run and fly out of the tunnel toward gainful employment. I happily drive to Pelham Manor around 10 a.m. to grocery shop at Fairway without the crowds. I'm happy being the mom who volunteers to have the play dates at her house and who can drive the carpool almost anywhere at anytime. I am taking all my favorite daytime classes at the gym and trying to fit in ladies who lunch—albeit lunch on budget—with my friends. On days I eat home, I lunch while watching Tivo'd episodes of the Real Housewives of Orange County repeats from the seasons before Bravomania turned me into a TV junkie.

While in the tunnel, I see the light at the end and not the dark behind. I sense that shortly I will come out the other side having to grocery shop on the weekends because of a demanding job. I will have to get up super early to work out before 6 a.m. or after 7 p.m., and sadly some days, I may not be able to work out at all.  I will have to hire a driving babysitter to carpool my daughter around town and I may be rushing home to see her before bedtime. There will be much less "me" time as I pack all of my family quality time into the weekend, minus time for basketball and soccer games. And, what about the luxuriously wealthy, psychologically unconscious ladies of Bravo?  Well, they will accumulate on the DVR with instructions to stay until I delete.

"But," you say, "those positive interviews and solid meetings may come to naught.  What then?" 

Then I go to Fairway at 10 a.m., take all my classes at the gym, drive my daughter and her friends everywhere they need to go, make new networking contacts, find new opportunities, schedule more potentially solid meetings and hopefully have more positive interviews as a result.   

The waiting is the easy part.

Mindy Gibson has worked in broadcast media through most of her career, primarily as a television programming executive launching three networks, including Telemundo and USA Network's cable channels in Latin America and Brazil.  Her column, Career Interrupted, will appear twice a month on Rye Patch.