Listen/watch this song/video. Perhaps, if I were able to embed this video I wouldn't be unemployed.
Oh yes, I am unemployed. Hence my being up at, oh wait - it's not that late, on a Sunday night. But mayhaps, if I were gainfully employed I would be getting ready for bed as I would most likely be rising at 6am. I miss that. But I don't necessarily miss the mundanity (is that a word?) of my previous workplace... no, no, no, mundane-ness wasn't it, but rather the lack of human interaction. I wish I were still getting paid to write. Oh woe. Woe is me. Berh, berh, berh.
Yeah.... so, I definitely thought this unemployedness would be a miracle in my life, giving me the ability to reassess my situation and what exactly it is that I want to do with myself, but that hasn't really been the case. I've been looking for work since November as I was told on the second day of training for my previous job that the company was going under (and would most likely not make it past the end of August - that was in May... I got let go 4/3 and was asked to stay on as long as possible, so I guess I was doing something right) and I haven't had much success, as I'm unemployed. I would very much rather not be unemployed, and I feel like this is the case for most Americans, perhaps even world citizens... things are really bleak for a lot of people right now, or so it seems; so the media tells me; so I see on the street; so my friend's mother reports of the decreasing traffic on her commute. Sigh, sigh. I'm scared. Terrified is the better word, as I have over $450 in student loan repayments a month and unemployment is only offering me $250 a week (but, since I'm part-timely employed if I make more than $125 in a month, they start taking out dollar for dollar)... oh, maybe I shouldn't be writing about this as the panic is rising in my chest. I never had panic attacks before I moved to Chicago - thought they were silly and unrealistic, but really, it feels like drowning, like drowning and you're freaking out and you know it's happening and you want to stop it, but the water is filling your lungs and you're trying as hard as you can to rush to the surface to gasp for air and it's exhausting, and thus the overwhelming feeling of panic takes hold. --My first panic attack was early in March, with the realization of my first year in Chicago completed and me being nowhere where I wanted. The gasping for air, the unstoppable sobs - it was painful and felt unnecessary so I scolded myself throughout. The second time came with the first day of unemployment when I realized that I couldn't file for unemployment online because I worked the first two months of last year in Missouri and therefore needed to go into the office [to fill out extra paperwork] that was BFE outta my way uptown - no thanks. The reality of the situation hit me like a serious trip over a concrete curb and the lack of my ability to change the situation immediately took hold. I tried to calm myself and not freak out, but that only worsened it, hence the drowning metaphor - the first time I let the panic wash over me in terror, the second time I felt it coming and didn't want it to happen hence the stifling of my sobs and the lack of air going into my lungs, which obviously made things worse. I sat on my couch, alone, April 6, gasping for air and shaking my head, saying "stop it", seeing myself someplace else... wishing that I were someplace else. Are the rest of my twenties going to be filled with the same terror? Oh, this isn't the time to be writing, and I know that after the showers the green will be brilliant and beautiful, but right now there doesn't seem to be an end in sight and I'm scared and I want better things for myself. I didn't get a college degree to work in dead-end jobs, and while I did get a degree in Theatre (emphasis in Writing for Performance) and a minor in Sociology I didn't expect myself to be working in restaurants well after the fact of that... it was Rollo May who once said that "What if imagination and art are not frosting at all, but the fountainhead of human experience?" and, well, I'm rambling now... and I'm just confused and, well, as many times as I remind myself I'm lucky for not having a mortgage or children, it's still hard to cope, and to not wish things were different than they are now, but this too shall pass (I hope).
I'm a good person, or at least I try to be. I wish[/think] the same for[/of] the people that surround me. I wish someone would give me a chance, and I used to think maybe I wasn't taking enough chances, but I have been, and I'm starting to get exhausted of putting myself out there and getting let down by the results. Oh, it's just been a long two weeks and I'm feeling so unsure of everything, but perhaps tomorrow will be different. I hope, but I also doubt... this sucks. Later I'll tell you everything I've always wanted to be in life - there's a lot on that list.
This post was probably too personal to be sharing with an online community, but maybe it made you feel better about your situation, which I hope is better than mine, and I wish you all the best in everything that you do, and hope that everything you wish comes true.
PS - I used to watch this (with my Grandma Dot) when I was a kid, and sometimes I still sing it to my friends when they're sad (I shoulda sang it to the little girl in my sock puppet workshop this weekend when we put her in a different group than her older sister and she got so upset that she started crying and it almost made me cry - I don't like when people around me are sad; it reminded me of the end of camp when you tell yourself that you're gonna keep it together, and not cry, and then someone else starts to cry, and you end up crying - oh! to be a sensitive girl!), and it usually makes them smile... it's okay.
I don't like playing this game of pretending to be an adult.
PPS - that last video's corniness just made me feel a lot better... now I'm watching this one. And also the one about "Ladies first, Ladies first!" -- eat that bitch, tigers, eat her up!!
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