There comes a time in this unemployment journey where I find myself wondering “whose life is this?”. This is not what I have prepared for, not what I have planned, not what I desire.  It is easy to say – “well, change it”.  It is a much more difficult task to be able to effect that change.

 

 

I have been extremely purposeful in my unemployment.

I rise each morning, resisting the urge to turn my nights and days around even though I am much more of a night owl than a morning person. I have a plan and or a project for each day and/or week.  I am intentional about dressing, makeup and hair.  I check off my “to do” list prior to engaging in fun activities (interpret that to mostly mean genealogy with a little Grey’s Anatomy thrown in there for good measure.) I have done my best to avoid the pitfalls of discouragement.

I am attempting to be diligent about working through my anger, my disappointment, my hurt and I think I have made good progress.  There are days that I don’t even give my former employer much of a thought.  I am persistent about applying for positions in my area of experience and interest.

 

But, as time goes on, I become more and more detached from society.

I have less and less to do with other people and their lives, their joys, their struggles.  I feel more and more like an outsider  It is easier and easier to have an opinion that is actually relevant.  Easier to be out of touch with what is going on in the world. Easier to just watch as others go about the business of life.

I am hungry for the daily interaction.  I have always been in the middle of life and for almost 6 months I have been on the sidelines.  There seems to be no balance with unemployment.  It feels lopsided.  Maybe only because I am extrovert.  Maybe unemployed introverts think this life would be blissful!

 

Don’t feel sorry for me -please.

I am just processing where I think I am in this new lifestyle of mine.  Maybe there are others who feel this way? Maybe not.  Maybe if my income didn’t make the “difference” financially I would feel differently. I could stay involved, I could go places, I could have a project. I don’t have a list of how to’s for other unemployed extroverts.  Today, I just seem to have a list of “I think”.

I think others try not to ask “did you find a job……YET?”  Or “how are you making it financially”? Or even, “what are your plans if you don’t find a job”? (and I am pretty sure my punctuation is incorrect with these sentences lol -but today I just don’t care!)  I think we hesitate to get involved in these and other questions because we just don’t know what to do. I think the unemployed sort of don’t want to hear the questions either, because no matter how they are asked (good intentions or not) we tend to hear them as something is wrong with us – the person who is unemployed.  That whole self worth thing. I mean really – didn’t we each have something to do with becoming unemployed? Of course the answer is most likely no – but we always wonder if we could have stopped the speeding train.

So, today… I am swimming upstream. It feels like I am on extended vacation – but not really.  It feels like I have lost the directions to my next destination. Siri can’t seem to tell me the answer that I need. It feels open ended in a very “open” way.

They say if you don’t like something about your life – then change it.  Gosh – that is good advice, if you have the power to do so.  But what if you are powerless to make the one change that will affect all the other changes?  What if you have no way to change that “powerlessness”?  What if it is about something other than “simple” unemployment?
People all around us need to “change it” but are powerless to do so. Either we need to get better at admitting we are the “powerless” or we have to get better at coming alongside others to help them become the “powerful”.  I don’t know.