When you move without a job and you don’t take the job you had with you (telework) then you have to find another one. Ideally you want to find a job before you move, but life does not always present a tidy, straight line directly to the desired goal. It is more a pencil scribble in the shape of a tumbleweed and an emergency landing into your destination. This is not at all a problem for me. I relish having free time. I will move, enjoy the holidays, take some time off, and then start looking. Eventually some big name, interesting company will see how amazing I am, throw a fancy job at me and then cut scene to me walking down the street like Blair Waldorf of Gossip Girl parading around my shopping bags.
I present to you: Funemployment. AKA Unemployment that is Fun.
They say it is easier to get a job in New York City once you live here. I was hoping securing an address would move up that timeline. Neither Cohabituer nor I had a job or any luck before the move. Some say that is ballsy coming here without a job. I shrug it off. I think that it is just part of it. We had a small financial cushion for a bit of time and then if needed we could become dog walkers or I could get into the foot fetish business. As long as there is ample cash involved and you keep it below my knee we have a deal. Am I kidding? You decide.
I romanticized what we would do with our days. Winter walks in the park, hot chocolate dates, roaming the city and learning every neighborhood and street, holing up in a small cafe and people watch at the window. Then that traitor got a call, an interview, a second interview, and an offer with a beyond amazing company by the end of our first week of residency.
I mean… yes, he deserves it and he is definitely worth it. And it is impressive and awesome. It should be handsomely celebrated. Buuuuut. I had plans. He started January 2nd, right after they returned from holiday break and when he would have normally resumed work from his previous employment.
I was still off. So what if I had to make slight adjustments to the plan? Picture this. I could either sleep in or take a nap every day, explore the city and become an expert, write for endless hours, get buried in a novel, catch up on TV series that has been long neglected, work out and get hella physically attractive, buy groceries without the crowd, window shop, make meals, and ride the subways from end to end.
If you are worried (or even looking forward to the escape) that the next few pages are me detailing my fabulous life, this is not that story.
Something happens to me when I have an open day and too many choices. I cannot pick or commit to anything. Here was this new place with endless possibilities. The adventure part of my brain wanted to conquer and get curious. But I am ruled by the predominant hermit that craves safety and security. I didn’t know where to go, so how could I even start? It would have been convenient for the Cheshire Cat to spring his condescending wisdom upon me taunting if I don’t know where I am going any road can take me there.
It started out in the first few days telling myself to recharge and refresh. I treated myself with sleeping in and taking naps. I could go out later in the week. I love sleeping and the gorgeous ways my imagination plays for me marvelous movies and stories to soak up as I slumber. Naps turned into all day sleep-a-thons until Cohabiteur was due home to entertain me. At the end of the evening he would go to bed and I would be wired, unable to sleep. I would sit up, and scroll through my phone repetitiously, and stare at the clock. Always with my phone in hand. Scrolling myself into oblivion. When it was time for him to wake up I would finally be ready to fall asleep. The sleep that used to be enjoyable was turning excruciating each time my head met the pillow. What a slippery, damning pattern I had formed.
Days turned into weeks of not actually talking to other humans all day and not going outside for days at a time. I would make to do lists that read: Grocery store, wash the dishes from the night before, clean kitchen, watch Blindspot, write a blog, read a book, go to a movie, workout, walk your precious dog. I would put it off and then start to bargain with myself. I will start the list later, I will start at noon, I can wait until 3PM, all of this can wait until tomorrow. The list turned from motivating tool to something I would beat myself up with as it sat on my phone in Notes and glared at me completely undone.
More was added to the list as my neglect worsened such as eat breakfast, eat lunch, shower, apply for jobs. The bargaining, always with the bargaining. I told myself after my birthday I would start applying for jobs. That way I could make sure I was off since I probably wouldn’t have enough time off to spoil myself in the fashion I had become accustomed. Anything to put it off. When end of February came I was so anxiety ridden and overcome with poor mental health that I could not see past laying in bed. Not with music on, not with the television on. Just silently, punishing myself. I wasn’t eating regularly. I could not decide what I wanted and I did not want to order in because I did not want to spend money that I was not bringing in. Eating meant buying food either at the store or out at a restaurant and I was stricken with guilt that I did not deserve to take up that kind of room. When I did eat it was chips or cake. Not eating causes headaches. Sleeping too much was causing headaches. Being awake was awful with a headache. My life began at 7 o’clock each night and lasted until about midnight.
The downward spiral was real. And dark. All I could do was worry. About everything. I couldn’t bring myself to apply to anything because I didn’t have an industry. Cohabituer is in Accounting. What am I? Nothing. Am I in Marketing? No. Am I in Medicine? No. Am I in Banking? No. Am I in Media? No. Entertainment? No. Sales? No. Cattle Ranching? Taxi Driving? Fashion? The freaking clergy? Just No. No. No. No. No.
I have worked a hodgepodge of jobs classified within countless industries with no consistency whatsoever. I am George of the Jungle just swinging from one lateral nobody position to another. How can I prove to someone who thinks that the corporate world is soooo different than higher education, where I had been working for the last five years, that they are in fact not really that different? You are both slower at the hiring process than you should be and neither of you invented the wheel. You’re not that special and neither am I. This became rhetoric I would end up spewing at Cohabituer nightly because I had nothing else to talk about, nothing to account for my day. I was veiled anger and self-hatred. While he would tell me about the new place he tried for lunch or the inside jokes developing with his team, a rage stewed inside of me that I would never have any of that ever again because I will never be hired as anything… not a waitress, not a receptionist, and definitely not as the highly coveted executive assistant because that actually makes a lot of money. I listened and sneered. How very nice for YOU.
Of course he was worried about me. But I am stubborn and during periods of unemployment this is not new behavior for me. I also covered it up more than I should. Plus when he was near I would light up, happy to have companionship, and for human interaction. We would go to Broadway shows sometimes or friends from out of town would visit, so it was broken up enough that I was, at times, functioning.
Only I could truly do something about my misery and the imaginary prison I locked myself. I knew deep down it was a choice to feel this purposeless. I allowed myself to be buried under negative feelings and fear. When I was finally done feeling like shit and tired of water for breakfast and lunch I started searching for articles about overcoming this situation and how to pull myself from my funk.
Finally I decided to forced myself to go outside and walk for thirty minutes a day. Not for weight loss, not even for my physical health, but for my mental health. If I went outside and ended up only making it down the street and it took thirty minutes then that’s okay. Or if I ended up in the park and sat there, that is also okay. If I walked six miles, that is perfectly fine, too.
And I did. I made myself wrap up in coats, scarves, hats, and gloves and I went. I hated it. Every part of me met it with resistance. I do not like it I would whine to myself. I do not want to be outside because sunlight exists on this planet. I do not want any of it. I am going to be Bartleby, the Scrivener and prefer not to until I fold up entirely within myself and disappear. But once I was done with the thirty minutes then it was also kinda… good.
I had to stop beating myself up. I had to take small steps. I had to try. Everything I thought I should be doing– I had to let it go.
My fondness for things that taste of rose and lavender, or really like I am munching on a large floral bouquet, also helped me move forward. During my endless nights of scrolling I came across rose milk tea sold at various shops and spots around the city. On my way to one I ended up walking past another place that had a more rare lavender milk tea. Everybody say ooooh. Everybody say aaaaahhhh. The tea lattes were fairly inexpensive at five or six dollars each so it was something I could allow myself to buy and it would feel like a treat to get to try them and discover which was best. Tea lattes plus forced walks became my lifeline. It was a way to cope with my struggling mental health. A way to find self-care again. Something that does not come naturally to me.
Slowly I became the better part of myself again. Regular enjoyment came back into my life. I tried to lean into the small things. To find pleasure in something as simple as cleaning myself. To eat regularly. To make room for something that did not entail shaming myself. And I realized I needed to say goodbye to Funemployment. It was never very fun. Not the way I had wished. The idea was so lovely, but I could not handle it. It was not serving me. For me doing something was better than doing nothing and I was not the on-the-go, do all the things, queen of the world kind of person I thought I should be. That is not who I am. It is as simple as that. And that is okay.
I guess the point of this story is that this is the truth. It is part of this journey, my journey. Even when you do cool things with your life it can still suck. Even if it is self inflicted. Even when you feel you should be grateful for what you have it can be hard. No one is okay all of the time. I am not okay all of the time. I was not okay then. That was not a healthy way to live and I recognize it. It is hard to be okay sometimes. I still take naps. Maybe even a lot of naps. I have always been a napping person. But I have found pleasure and joy in them again. And am not currently using them as a crutch or a prison. And for that I am thankful.
In case you are in need now or in the future: an interesting link about negative emotions from Ted.
New York Nobody 