Unemployment Diaries: 1 Week Later, Torn

Originally published/last updated on myearlyretirementjourney.com on Aug 10, 2019. 

Today is Sat, Aug 10. It is 11:58a. I am in my bed wearing the same thing I’ve had on for the last few days.

The last time I left the house was Tuesday. Wednesday? Whoa. Has it already been that long! I told myself to get out of the house briefly everyday just to break up the monotony.

So far two people outside of my co-workers know I quit my job. Both are classmates. One found out because he’s friends with one of my indirect co-workers. The other found out because I was emailing in the middle of the day. I could’ve said I was just not at work that day, but it just tumbled out that I quit my job.

The strangers from Meetup don’t count.

I think ultimately I don’t want anyone weighing in on what I should do next. I have enough trouble sifting through my own thoughts. External influence has rarely helped me make a good decision. So I tend not to seek advice. Once I turned 30, that was a very salient decision I made. I use my past to inform my future.

WORK

This week was not that fun or easy. I just wanted to make a decision, any decision. I think I applied to twenty more jobs, about 9 of them were on late night Thursday going into Friday.

I’ve been pretty reckless. I went back on my decision to not use fake addresses. I foresee that coming to bite me in the butt. But I want to rule out my locale as a reason I’m not moving forward in the process. If nothing comes of these, I’ll know my address is not a factor. I’ll decide depending on the situation if I’m willing to spring for the cash for an onsite. Desperate times always lead to good decisions right?

LIFE

I impulsively bought a plane ticket to Tampa to visit Aunty MERJ from Tues to Thurs of next week just to pass the time even though I already had a ticket from months ago to see her that Saturday and Sunday. But she always sounds so pitiful on the phone that I felt bad after talking to her. I immediately regretted that decision. After an excruciating phone call, Frontier gave me a travel credit. Thank the Lord.

I’m running the fan +/- the a/c all day since I’m home all day. I wonder what my electric bill will be this month.

I keep setting up limits on screen time and failing spectacularly.

I want to go the pool because it’s there and it’s free. But I basically need to do things when I wake up or it’s not getting done. And the pool doesn’t open till 9a.

BALANCE

Because I am actively job searching, it’s hard to know whether to structure my day as though I have three months off or to just enjoy my time off like a long vacation.

My most recent plan is to ask for my job back (or sign up for something similar) after three months, so around Nov 1.  That I couldn’t reignite my life in any significant way makes me cringe, but then I have to be grateful that I would probably find something if I were facing financial strain.

When I pictured taking time off from work, I wanted to have a set amount of time off and a job to go to afterward. This is a muddled picture of that. Leaving my job was so anticlimactic that going back would not be met with so much fanfare. I mean it’s still an unknown that they’d have an opening. I can always do retail, I tell myself. Ugh.

What do I even want?

Sometimes when I don’t know what to do because the choices aren’t ideal, I ask myself what I want.

For a new job, I wrote down:

• Making beaucoup bucks
  • Defined as: able to save at least $40k post tax; my 2019 goal was $26k
• Cool city
  • This is pretty open ended as I could be convinced of anything at this point; I keep leaning toward West Coast but my last two visits out there didn’t give me the sense of belonging I’d hoped for
• Be sought after
  • I really enjoyed the couple times that employers reached out within a day or two from my application and it felt like they were rooting for me
• Easy application process
  • Read: not an interview panel of 9 people for an entry level position
• Perfect fit of skill meets challenge (i.e. flow)
  • I want to be good at my job and do a good job

This changes though.
Every day or hour or minute I seem to have a new plan. Leave. Stay. Ask for my job back. Work retail. Work clinical. I even looked at jobs back in Education. Move to NJ. Move in with my aunt in Maryland while I search. Take a contract position in NJ. Disappear completely. Spend all my money and get desperate enough to not have choices or options.

Then I really start to spiral.

Should I have networked better or at all? Would I be in this position if I had smiled more?  How is everyone else progressing so quickly? Where are my friends? Do I need friends? Why am I trying so hard to get a job when I don’t even like working that much? Is starting over really going to change anything?

I have no answers. This life has been truly a mystery to me. I look around and I really don’t get it. Am I forever going to be that girl that is never happy to get what she wants? Or just never happy, full stop?