Friday means nothing to the Unemployed

I was at home working on some cover letters and applications yesterday afternoon, and I idly checked Facebook. You know,  like ya'do.

I saw four posts from people proclaiming their gratitude for it being Friday. "Friday, where have you been all week, I've missed you." "Going home to my baby, and glad it's Friday," and "Woo hoo, it's Friday!" And it occurred to me . . . Friday means very little to the unemployed.

Now, it so happens, I had a wonderful, healthy dinner out with my wickedly funny and totally brill friend last night, but that could have happened any night for me. Friday is just another day.

Right now, my weeks are like this:

Sunday - workout with my trainer, and try to catch up on some housework or cooking
Monday - another day of job hunting, and possibly some extra cardio
Tuesday - another day of job hunting, cardio, and NOT going to sing (I dropped choir during this season of fearful money)
Wednesday - another day of job hunting, cardio and resistance work out
Thursday - another day of job hunting, cardio and maybe some laundry
Friday - another day of job hunting, cardio, and resistance, pack gym bag for swimming
Saturday - treadmill, swimming, and church

As savvy readers, I'm sure you'll see the pattern here. I job hunt, and punish myself on a treadmill or bike (and occasionally I add some rowing or stairmaster in there too). I sweat out some cardio and I job hunt. I search for jobs, and I log cardio hours. Did I mention the time spent applying for work and the time spent raising my heart rate?

I've decided I need to add some variety in there. What can be said of my last job, regardless of liking it or not liking it, is that I was never doing the same thing repetitively. Every day was different. If I was in the office two days in a row, the tasks didn't match. And certainly, when on the road, what I was doing changed significantly depending on who I was working with that day. So, doing the same thing day-in and day-out is not a habit I'm in.

It becomes clear to me how the unemployed get into a rut of sitting around in their ratty sweatshirt, parked on the couch, steeped in depression. It's hard work to not be working, ironically. This is the hardest thing I've done, and this is speaking as someone who received two master's degrees, one while being emotionally abused by her adviser, trained for and earned a black belt, took and passed Calc 3, and was dumped by her fiance days after her father's death. This is hard.

It's hard to make myself reach out to friends, and hard to remind myself this isn't my fault. It's difficult to make this my full-time gig, and not be depressed. I'm working out a lot of stress on the treadmill, but not keeping despair at bay. Which isn't to say I'm sad and miserable all the time. I'm not. I swing from being wildly hopeful and thinking, "Yes. What an opportunity to find a job that really makes me happy and excited!" But when the pendulum swings back, I realize, "I don't get to blow off steam on Friday because I didn't work hard this week. I'm single, unemployed, and in my mid-thirties. How did I get here?"

Cardio isn't enough. I need to get out of the house. I need to do things that make me feel like I'm still a capable, confident adult that DOES things. Dinner out was excellent last night because I got to have interesting conversation and feel smart. Being alone in my house is a recipe for forgetting I am a person with ideas, vocabulary, and accomplishments.

For all of these reasons, I am contemplating two measures. One, budgeting $5-10 a week to sit at Starbucks or the like while job hunting-and-applying so that I'm not at home and have to wear a bra and something other than my ratty sweatshirt. Two, getting very serious about a schedule of part time work so that I am not consumed by what feels like the very real threat of never being useful to society again.