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.
Saturday, January 21, 2012
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
Do you want to . . .
"Do you want to do some bike and stair master on Monday?"
NO!!
Ok, people, lets go over this again. I don't like cardio. I really don't. Here are some things I do like:
So, ok, there are some forms of cardio on that list. I love to take a nice walk. Swimming calms me down and makes me feel both adrenalized and calm at the same time. And I've gotten exercise I haven't loathed while I was sweating. I used to climb with my bestest friend in NJ and, dudes, I sucked at it. But I loved it. I had no natural ability for karate, but an hour of working up a sweat at the dojo was more fun than beers with my friends, and so I often gave up going out with friends in favor of a class. I've been in some excellent games of capture the flag and soccer that I loved, win or lose. (Though I'm quick to tell you all, at age 21, playing a serious, all out game of capture the flag across my college campus, I brought home the opposing team's flag, with three of their players hot in pursuit. I ran THROUGH the dorm that had bathrooms as connectors between the halls, and changed floors from first, to second to third several times. No, I'm not competitive at all. I haven't any idea what you're talking about!)
But, cardio, for cardio's sake - naaaahhhhhh. I don't wanna. Nope. I do not want to meet you on the stairmaster. But I will. (Siiiiggggh)
Because here is something else I don't want. I don't want to sit at home, watching 6 hours of the Intervention marathon. I don't want to spend 3 days in a row in my pajamas, unshowered. I don't want to be here, each week, when my local Jehova Witnesses come on their regular visits. I don't want to lie in bed for three hours reading, and staring at the ceiling, and avoiding the frightening things about my current reality. I don't want to steep myself in activities that make it easy for me to slip into depression. I don't want to dwell on the negative.
I'd hate it more if I became a depressed shut-in trolling the web for job opportunities and cutting and pasting cover letters. So, I get on the treadmill. And I meet my friend and bike, and stairmaster (brutal!) on my appointed day-off from exercise. Sweating is better than crying. That's all there is to it. And being with people is better than being alone, even if it's a brutal 45 minutes on a bike and a stairmaster that make me want to hurl. Ugh.
NO!!
Ok, people, lets go over this again. I don't like cardio. I really don't. Here are some things I do like:
- Sleeping 8 hours a night
- Watching the Colbert Report
- Learning from other people
- Fresh fruit
- Game nights
- Game nights with nachos and my friend Mary's divine popcorn
- Brunch
- Growing my own basil
- Teaching
- Babies. More specifically, watching babies becoming toddlers and learn awesome things.
- Swimming
- Writing
- Photography
- Giving someone a gift that makes their face light up
- Hearing people's stories
- Cooking
- Really amazing pizza
- Cupcakes
- Shakespeare
- Organization
- Respect, trust, integrity, inspiration
- Sports movies, end of the world movies, and movies based on true stories
- Working hard at something and getting it right
- Walking
- The ocean
- Sunsets over the mountains
- Pedicures
- Having friends from different corners of my life meet and like each other
- Music - listening, dancing to it, and making it
- Spending a day with some really good lemonade and a book I can't put down
- Laughing until my ribs hurt
- Fried pickles
So, ok, there are some forms of cardio on that list. I love to take a nice walk. Swimming calms me down and makes me feel both adrenalized and calm at the same time. And I've gotten exercise I haven't loathed while I was sweating. I used to climb with my bestest friend in NJ and, dudes, I sucked at it. But I loved it. I had no natural ability for karate, but an hour of working up a sweat at the dojo was more fun than beers with my friends, and so I often gave up going out with friends in favor of a class. I've been in some excellent games of capture the flag and soccer that I loved, win or lose. (Though I'm quick to tell you all, at age 21, playing a serious, all out game of capture the flag across my college campus, I brought home the opposing team's flag, with three of their players hot in pursuit. I ran THROUGH the dorm that had bathrooms as connectors between the halls, and changed floors from first, to second to third several times. No, I'm not competitive at all. I haven't any idea what you're talking about!)
But, cardio, for cardio's sake - naaaahhhhhh. I don't wanna. Nope. I do not want to meet you on the stairmaster. But I will. (Siiiiggggh)
Because here is something else I don't want. I don't want to sit at home, watching 6 hours of the Intervention marathon. I don't want to spend 3 days in a row in my pajamas, unshowered. I don't want to be here, each week, when my local Jehova Witnesses come on their regular visits. I don't want to lie in bed for three hours reading, and staring at the ceiling, and avoiding the frightening things about my current reality. I don't want to steep myself in activities that make it easy for me to slip into depression. I don't want to dwell on the negative.
I'd hate it more if I became a depressed shut-in trolling the web for job opportunities and cutting and pasting cover letters. So, I get on the treadmill. And I meet my friend and bike, and stairmaster (brutal!) on my appointed day-off from exercise. Sweating is better than crying. That's all there is to it. And being with people is better than being alone, even if it's a brutal 45 minutes on a bike and a stairmaster that make me want to hurl. Ugh.
Sunday, January 15, 2012
Three lunches and a training session
Letting people help me is one of the most difficult and most healing experiences of my life.
Let me preface this by saying, I don't want to accept help. I don't want to need help. I hate help.
Which is all really ironic and hypocritical since I love, love, love helping others! Since graduating I have given to charities that matter to me, I have volunteered at nursing homes, educational programs, with young children, and registering voters. I still volunteer monthly with a program I believe deeply in.
There's no way to do this without sounding like I'm so awesome and I know it, but I used to donate more hours than I was required to students. I am always available to my friends who need editing done on essays, letters, or the like. I have written more reference letters than I can count, and used to be everybody's favorite person to help them move. I've carried a lot of couches. I have helped people learn a new skill, helped with homework, and babysat for free.
It makes me happy to be someone's ride, to cook someone dinner, or to buy a friend a drink. It is my pleasure. But more than the things I give what makes me most satisfied are the times a friend needed to talk, needed someone to listen, or needed help with something intangible. I like giving.
I tend to agree with my friend Eric, that no giving is completely altruistic. My experience has always been that when I can look at my day and point to something worthwhile I did (you know, point to it to myself. Not to others. That really would be bragging!) my day feels more rewarding. I give because doing it feels good.
This was never more evident than the day before I moved to Colorado. I had insisted we find a shelter or food bank to give my unused pantry food to. When I found one, I looked at their list of most needed items and saw they also wanted soap, shampoo, and other toiletries to offer their guests the ability to shower. Well, lo, I had a shopping bag full of travel sized toiletries from all my business trips. So I packed those up along with my bags of rice and canned goods. We had to stop what we were doing in the middle of packing and loading and drive a town over to make the delivery, and parking was not ideal. We had the wrong address. It took a hour to make this simple donation. But when we arrived someone dutifully took our grocery bags, but then we had to come inside to make the toiletries drop. The kid who took that donation went RUNNING to the back office, shouting, "Look! Look! How many showers can we offer with this?!"
I was tired, and sweaty, and had been feeling kind of over-cooked with the moving process. I had fielded three really difficult good-bye meals, and one crying friend (who never, ever cries) breaking down in my kitchen. I was DONE. Stick a fork in me. But that 30 seconds of seeing the glee someone else had to be able to provide for those who had less, to know I played a role in it - that hour kept me going for the additional 12 hours it took to finish loading the moving truck that day.
People feel good when they can do the right thing. People feel confident and happy when they can help. People like to know they did something meaningful, supportive, and contributed to the greater good. There's something to being able to pay it forward. And as my mom says, water seeks its own level. So, I should assume that when people offer me their hands and help openly, it is because they love me and it makes them feel good. I know it can be that way, but often the reaction I have first is warriness.
Although I went out into the world feeling more alone than I was ready for, I. Did. It. How? Ummm, I had help. I had people I could lean on. I talk a good game about being so independent, but you know, it wasn't like I sold a kidney and then took care of myself. I had mentors. I had a family friend who loaned me money. I had friends who read my papers and helped me complete them (granted, this was part of my college's plan - we had to form committees of readers to pass our papers and take us through several drafts. And students who had already "passed" that area could be readers). I had people who hooked me up with a myriad of part time jobs so I could pay the college the sums that no 18 year-olds knows how to come up with and stay registered. I wasn't all on my own.
And that community was such that I could see exactly how to pay that forward. I helped other students get their papers read and passed. I helped students get their portfolios together. I did community service aimed at supporting students. And when I graduated and was working on campus and some student housing burned down, I offered up my extra bedrooms.
So, where did that feeling of "full circle" go? I left that close knit community and small campus and life went fast, and all of a sudden, here I am, nearly 13 years later, stymied by this situation. For a couple of weeks after my lay-off, I was fixated on a conversation I had had at a friends' house in NJ in May. One of them had quit her job the very week I was there. She and her wonderful wife had decided her happiness was more important than another couple of months of salary. And we were talking about my job and I said, "if there was another income in my house, I would have quit already."
And so, when the position was eliminated, all I could think is, "what does a woman with no other income in her house DO in this situation. I'm all alone."
What a ridiculous liar I am sometimes. I was never alone. Within a couple of days, I had people asking if they could be my reference. I've been offered the opportunity to consider a couple of different kinds of part time work. Friends have called to check on me. People who I haven't talked to in over a year have asked to pass along my resume to those they know. And not one, not two, but three people took me to lunch this week.
I had four amazing years of community support and the ability to give and receive help in college, and then 13 years of painfully unlearning that. And the horrible lesson I learned was, "don't trust people who want to give you something. You will be let down. There will be strings attached. It will get messy. You don't deserve anything offered. Keep your guard up." But this week, I had three lunches, and a training session that countered that.
So, the door I had slammed to all of that began to open. I told myself stories like, "well, I took her to a movie once when she was broke," and "I was invited to dinner and said I was going to bring 2 things, but then brought 6 things," or " I help her with something hard for her, and fun for me, every week." and then I shoved that kind of ledger-thinking away and said, "I want to see and talk to this person. I want to keep being positive. I want to keep depression at bay, and not find myself curled up on the couch crippled by the enormity of this story. So. GO. Go out to lunch. Enjoy the time with this person."
Those moments were hard for me. Not because of my friends. My friends are not only wonderful, loving supportive people, but people with the grace to make those lunches about wanting to spend time with me and celebrate my release from bondage. I never felt like I was their charity.
Those moments were hard for me because of my foolish pride, and this false idea that I have that I'm an island. Somehow, in my mind, there are terrible consequences to building bridges off that island. Or letting anyone defy my bridge-less-ness by bringing their boat over and saying, "Hey, I notice you have lots of coconuts here, but wouldn't they go well with rum? And hey, I know how to mix that drink! Wanna have some with me?"
Those drinks healed me. In lots of ways! I literally did have a boozy lunch with one of those friends. and it was simply delicious to talk everything over with her. And while it was water and salads at the other lunches, the conversation and things those women bravely shared with me reminded me that it's a bad goal to try and be an island. My friend, the same one who cried when I left Jersey, the same one who supported her partner in leaving an unhappy job, wanted to NOT have a baby shower. She didn't want a fuss, or silly games. I understood that. But I pressed her and said, "It's not just to get gifts It's because there are a community of people who want to celebrate this with you. those aren't just your fans, but your baby's fans and the people who will be there for you when you need support and love and someone to talk to as a parent."
So, she had a shower. And I was PSYCHED to send a gift. But guess what? All of those people also lined up after the delivery just waiting to give love to them and their baby girl. Love is for giving away.
It begins to heal the bad lessons I learned over the last 13 years to know that people are offering their support and help because they believe in me and think I am a good bet to put what they're offering to use in a positive way. And so, today, I took the next leap and accepted an even bigger gift at my training appointment. It is one that will make me very cognizant of being accountable in this process. With this gift in my hand, I can't just work out, or eat right, or search for a job as isolated tasks. I have no choice but to see this as a process of finding the life that allows me to keep those things in balance; whatever the job ends up being.
So, thank you all. And keep me honest about accepting help and support.
Let me preface this by saying, I don't want to accept help. I don't want to need help. I hate help.
Which is all really ironic and hypocritical since I love, love, love helping others! Since graduating I have given to charities that matter to me, I have volunteered at nursing homes, educational programs, with young children, and registering voters. I still volunteer monthly with a program I believe deeply in.
There's no way to do this without sounding like I'm so awesome and I know it, but I used to donate more hours than I was required to students. I am always available to my friends who need editing done on essays, letters, or the like. I have written more reference letters than I can count, and used to be everybody's favorite person to help them move. I've carried a lot of couches. I have helped people learn a new skill, helped with homework, and babysat for free.
It makes me happy to be someone's ride, to cook someone dinner, or to buy a friend a drink. It is my pleasure. But more than the things I give what makes me most satisfied are the times a friend needed to talk, needed someone to listen, or needed help with something intangible. I like giving.
I tend to agree with my friend Eric, that no giving is completely altruistic. My experience has always been that when I can look at my day and point to something worthwhile I did (you know, point to it to myself. Not to others. That really would be bragging!) my day feels more rewarding. I give because doing it feels good.
This was never more evident than the day before I moved to Colorado. I had insisted we find a shelter or food bank to give my unused pantry food to. When I found one, I looked at their list of most needed items and saw they also wanted soap, shampoo, and other toiletries to offer their guests the ability to shower. Well, lo, I had a shopping bag full of travel sized toiletries from all my business trips. So I packed those up along with my bags of rice and canned goods. We had to stop what we were doing in the middle of packing and loading and drive a town over to make the delivery, and parking was not ideal. We had the wrong address. It took a hour to make this simple donation. But when we arrived someone dutifully took our grocery bags, but then we had to come inside to make the toiletries drop. The kid who took that donation went RUNNING to the back office, shouting, "Look! Look! How many showers can we offer with this?!"
I was tired, and sweaty, and had been feeling kind of over-cooked with the moving process. I had fielded three really difficult good-bye meals, and one crying friend (who never, ever cries) breaking down in my kitchen. I was DONE. Stick a fork in me. But that 30 seconds of seeing the glee someone else had to be able to provide for those who had less, to know I played a role in it - that hour kept me going for the additional 12 hours it took to finish loading the moving truck that day.
People feel good when they can do the right thing. People feel confident and happy when they can help. People like to know they did something meaningful, supportive, and contributed to the greater good. There's something to being able to pay it forward. And as my mom says, water seeks its own level. So, I should assume that when people offer me their hands and help openly, it is because they love me and it makes them feel good. I know it can be that way, but often the reaction I have first is warriness.
Although I went out into the world feeling more alone than I was ready for, I. Did. It. How? Ummm, I had help. I had people I could lean on. I talk a good game about being so independent, but you know, it wasn't like I sold a kidney and then took care of myself. I had mentors. I had a family friend who loaned me money. I had friends who read my papers and helped me complete them (granted, this was part of my college's plan - we had to form committees of readers to pass our papers and take us through several drafts. And students who had already "passed" that area could be readers). I had people who hooked me up with a myriad of part time jobs so I could pay the college the sums that no 18 year-olds knows how to come up with and stay registered. I wasn't all on my own.
And that community was such that I could see exactly how to pay that forward. I helped other students get their papers read and passed. I helped students get their portfolios together. I did community service aimed at supporting students. And when I graduated and was working on campus and some student housing burned down, I offered up my extra bedrooms.
So, where did that feeling of "full circle" go? I left that close knit community and small campus and life went fast, and all of a sudden, here I am, nearly 13 years later, stymied by this situation. For a couple of weeks after my lay-off, I was fixated on a conversation I had had at a friends' house in NJ in May. One of them had quit her job the very week I was there. She and her wonderful wife had decided her happiness was more important than another couple of months of salary. And we were talking about my job and I said, "if there was another income in my house, I would have quit already."
And so, when the position was eliminated, all I could think is, "what does a woman with no other income in her house DO in this situation. I'm all alone."
What a ridiculous liar I am sometimes. I was never alone. Within a couple of days, I had people asking if they could be my reference. I've been offered the opportunity to consider a couple of different kinds of part time work. Friends have called to check on me. People who I haven't talked to in over a year have asked to pass along my resume to those they know. And not one, not two, but three people took me to lunch this week.
I had four amazing years of community support and the ability to give and receive help in college, and then 13 years of painfully unlearning that. And the horrible lesson I learned was, "don't trust people who want to give you something. You will be let down. There will be strings attached. It will get messy. You don't deserve anything offered. Keep your guard up." But this week, I had three lunches, and a training session that countered that.
So, the door I had slammed to all of that began to open. I told myself stories like, "well, I took her to a movie once when she was broke," and "I was invited to dinner and said I was going to bring 2 things, but then brought 6 things," or " I help her with something hard for her, and fun for me, every week." and then I shoved that kind of ledger-thinking away and said, "I want to see and talk to this person. I want to keep being positive. I want to keep depression at bay, and not find myself curled up on the couch crippled by the enormity of this story. So. GO. Go out to lunch. Enjoy the time with this person."
Those moments were hard for me. Not because of my friends. My friends are not only wonderful, loving supportive people, but people with the grace to make those lunches about wanting to spend time with me and celebrate my release from bondage. I never felt like I was their charity.
Those moments were hard for me because of my foolish pride, and this false idea that I have that I'm an island. Somehow, in my mind, there are terrible consequences to building bridges off that island. Or letting anyone defy my bridge-less-ness by bringing their boat over and saying, "Hey, I notice you have lots of coconuts here, but wouldn't they go well with rum? And hey, I know how to mix that drink! Wanna have some with me?"
Those drinks healed me. In lots of ways! I literally did have a boozy lunch with one of those friends. and it was simply delicious to talk everything over with her. And while it was water and salads at the other lunches, the conversation and things those women bravely shared with me reminded me that it's a bad goal to try and be an island. My friend, the same one who cried when I left Jersey, the same one who supported her partner in leaving an unhappy job, wanted to NOT have a baby shower. She didn't want a fuss, or silly games. I understood that. But I pressed her and said, "It's not just to get gifts It's because there are a community of people who want to celebrate this with you. those aren't just your fans, but your baby's fans and the people who will be there for you when you need support and love and someone to talk to as a parent."
So, she had a shower. And I was PSYCHED to send a gift. But guess what? All of those people also lined up after the delivery just waiting to give love to them and their baby girl. Love is for giving away.
It begins to heal the bad lessons I learned over the last 13 years to know that people are offering their support and help because they believe in me and think I am a good bet to put what they're offering to use in a positive way. And so, today, I took the next leap and accepted an even bigger gift at my training appointment. It is one that will make me very cognizant of being accountable in this process. With this gift in my hand, I can't just work out, or eat right, or search for a job as isolated tasks. I have no choice but to see this as a process of finding the life that allows me to keep those things in balance; whatever the job ends up being.
So, thank you all. And keep me honest about accepting help and support.
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