At Last

At a moment when it really needed to happen, I finally got a job. It is a tremendous relief.

In reviewing all that has happened in the past year and a half it is difficult to distill and find one coherent lesson. It's difficult to make sense of something that occurred randomly and nearly blew my life apart.

As I sift through what happened and my reaction to it, it is my attitude rather than the circumstances that I could have changed. It was a time to concentrate on the light. If I stared into the dark I wouldn't be able to crawl out of bed every morning.

Ironically, at a time when prospects seemed most dim and I felt pressure to be particularly ascetic, disciplined, and diligent, the lesson I learned was that I also needed to savor life a bit. It was difficult to indulge in anything because I felt great economic stress. But I made an effort to enjoy some part of every day.

My budget made it impossible to indulge in much, so I had to seek the pleasures that are free. I loved the extra access to the outdoors. When I was employed full time, I would often resent toiling in a building that sealed out warm Sun and bright light. The opportunity to bask in warmth and light was a blessing.

Its strange because I don't consider myself much of an outdoors person. I tend to prefer traditional indoor activities to outdoor pursuits such as gardening, hiking, or sports. Bouts of skin cancer have also urged me avoid the Sun. But when I was sick it seemed ridiculous to worry about skin cancer anymore. The pleasure I get from the sensation of being warmed by the Sun far outweighs reasons for avoiding it.

As a more practical matter, the lack of work gave me the time to take classes and to figure out some things on my own. This blog was an effort to build my technology skills. I was very fortunate to have an Americorps grant to pay for courses. Otherwise, I might not have been able to enroll.

Looking for work has always been a challenge for me. While I have no difficulty advocating for ideas or other people, I feel uncomfortable promoting myself. In the new work environment where we are supposed to move around every two years, this is a real problem. I'm grateful that I learned how to network a little better. It is something I still have to develop, but I did improve. This led to some interesting freelance work and new business contacts. Now it is up to me to continue building on this foundation.

The lack of purpose and routine that accompanied job loss was eventually replaced with a recognition that my free schedule was an opportunity to invite more unexpected events into my life. This seems obvious in retrospect, but when one is concentrating on the lack of a job the opportunity to pursue the frivolous doesn't seem like the best choice.

The effort to enjoy a part of every day spurred me to grasp the chance to do something new and different. Since I was a child and saw images of ticker tape parades in old films and photographs I have wanted to participate in one of these parades. I had the chance when the Yankees won the World Series. I also accepted a spur of the moment invitation to the US Open on a week day.

Since I didn't have to worry about getting up early to go to work, I was free to take late evening classes to pursue things that interested me but that I wasn't passionate about. This led me to learn the Michael Jackson Thriller dance with a group of strangers. I also finally made the effort to participate in the Halloween and Macy's Thanksgiving parades -- two events I always meant to do but didn't because I would get caught up in work and not realize that the time for the event was approaching. I also scheduled touch tours for my blind friend at the Metropolitan Museum and MOMA, and was able to accompany him on both tours.

This lull was a chance to take advantage of some of the deals I would miss while chained to my desk in an office. On a couple of days I waited for 4-6 hours in a ridiculously long line for $20 opera tickets at the Met. My flexible schedule also enabled me to snag a free Remy eyebrow shaping, Fekkai shampoo, and Origins cleanser.

This odd expanse of unfettered time also revealed to me my strange relationship with time. I now realize the great extent to which my enjoyment of events is damped by anticipation of time constraints. It was wonderful to see friends on weekdays without concern for the clock. We were free to enjoy each others' company without the expectation of cutting the night short to get to bed early.

Similarly, I was able to enjoy reading several dense books while recuperating from illness.

Now I realize how much worrying about schedules and lists of things to do infringes on my enjoyment of my time when I am working. It is as if none of my time is really free. There is always a concern in the back of my mind that doesn't allow me to fully relax.

I also concentrated on the sense of compassion I felt from others. It pleasantly surprised me who offered help and how they offered it. High school classmates that friended me on Facebook gave me work leads although I hadn't seen them in 25 years. My doctors gave me drug samples so I could save money on prescriptions. My dance instructor insisted I continue taking her classes without paying. Friends took me out to lunch and picked up my drink tab.

On the one hand, I felt embarrassed to accept charity from my friends. On the other, I recognized that I would do (and have done) the same for them. In fact, it sometimes came to light that the "unlikely" people who helped me had received favors from me in the past and I had forgotten about it.

Experiencing this kindness had a profound effect on me. I'm sorry that it was necessary that I be in such a position to receive these blessings, but I am also relieved that the world is more benevolent than I expected it to be. Now I am consciously focusing on developing more compassion for others. I doubt any of my friends think I owe them something. Instead, I am very eager to pick up the tab for any friend who is looking for work.

I suppose the greatest lesson I learned is that I could survive. Unfortunately, I have lived through bad times before. I endured seven miserable years putting myself through college, weathered medical problems, and suffered a lay off and unemployment a decade ago. All of these are events I would rather forget, yet they taught me that I am resilient and can survive tough blows.

For all of these blessings, there are some regrets. My fear led me to cage and punished myself a bit. I was extremely austere. I walked everywhere to save subway fare and cut back on food. Although I had time to take art classes and could have benefited from distraction from stress, I didn't take them because it seemed like an indulgence. I felt guilty about making any art at all, and stopped making it.

As I pushed myself into these corners, it felt as if my personality had ceased to exist. It went underground and I walked around like a purposeless ghost. I played the role of someone I thought I should be and thus became invisible.

In retrospect this was a big mistake, and I'm glad my illness lessened the grip of this misguided notion. Jobs rob us of time and personal pursuits. Our personalities are suppressed each day we don a professional demeanor.

Near the end of my unemployment, I read an anecdote about American painter Charles Burchfield. While in ill health, he noticed a leaf that had landed upright in the neighbor's lawn and escaped fall raking. All through the winter, he monitored this leaf to see whether it had survived another day of gales and snowstorms.

"For me it has become a sort of symbol or example -- as it clings so stubbornly, so must I 'hang on' through this illness which has lasted so long. I have moments of utter despair, and then I look out and I see this little oak-leaf, my little friend. Each morning I look for it and it is always there." (letter 1957)

He made a painting of the courageous leaf. His wife later framed the leaf and hung it in his studio. When I read this story, I felt the presence of a kindered spirit.

Falling

I reconnected with a former work colleague recently who I really like, and we made a plan to meet for lunch.

My stubborn inability to estimate the time to do something nabbed me again. As I walked the 13 blocks to the diner, I realized I would not make the appointment in time. I marveled that I was able to transverse the same 13 blocks plus 3 long avenues the night before in about the same amount of time I allotted to go only 13 blocks, shook my head, and began jogging to get there faster.

Somehow I tripped and fell. I don't know whether I tripped on my own feet or broken sidewalk. It is strange because I am hyper aware of everything else about this fall which seemed to take place in slow motion.

I recall initially attempting to shift my weight to avoid falling. It seemed for a micro-moment as if I would recover. But then I continued to fall forward until I slammed into the pavement.

As my knee hit the sidewalk, my heart sunk. My knees have been causing me some pain for the past several years. It is essential that they work so I can dance. My movements have already been compromised by minor knee pain. A chiropractor told me there is little that can be done to make them better.

This was likely to ruin my knee and further curb my ability to dance.

A woman came over to help me get up. I wanted to get up on my own just to assess the damage. She told me I was bleeding on my chin.

My last INR test had been very high. In fact, it was one percentage point away from dangerous. As a result, I was warned to avoid falling or hitting my head.

My hands felt numb, and I was nervous that this indicated a bad ramification of falling with very thin blood. I wanted to phone my insurance company's nurse hot line to get advice, but my hands felt like mittens and I couldn't grasp (let alone dial) my phone.

People stared at me as I hobbled to the diner. My purse strap was broken, my sweater was torn, and my chin was bleeding. I was on the verge of tears. I must have looked startled and deranged.

I met my friend and tried not to cry. It is unclear why I was so weepy. By this point I wasn't in that much pain. Maybe it had something to do with feeling fragile. This has been a very difficult year, and I can't absorb another problem.

People at the diner stared at me. I got the sense the staff did not want me to stay. There are strong taboos about blood in the age of AIDs and Hepatitis. Perhaps my bleeding chin made them nervous. It bled for the next hour.

This experience tapped into some notions about my unemployment that simmer at the back of my mind. Although my status is involuntary and I am seeking work, I feel guilty about not working. I sense that others think I am to blame for losing my job. A laid off worker is unwanted. For whatever reason the employer rejected me rather than the person sitting next to me.

It may be my own perception rather than a real phenomenon, but being an unemployed person during the Great Recession feels radioactive. It makes others uncomfortable to be around a person who has lost their job.

It is as if unemployment is the plague. People are afraid they will be next to get a pink slip. They want to avoid those who have succumbed and mingle with the strong.

Others simply don't know how to respond. Everyone knows those who have lost their jobs are unlikely to get employment. If they do, it is probably going to be for a lesser position with a substantial pay cut. Its difficult to be around someone facing such prospects. There is little one can do to help.

As unemployment drags on, I find it more difficult to socialize. I feel like a poor kid with my face pressed against the glass of the candy display case. It seems inconceivable that other people get candy. I feel isolated, depressed, and scared. It can't be pleasant to be around me.

At the diner I had the physical signs of a fall. My pathetic interior was matched by noticeable external bruises, limping, torn clothes, and bleeding. It was as if the fears I harbor as an unemployed person were on display. I resembled a social outcast.

At least I still have health insurance. After lunch, I went to my doctor so he could examine my swollen and stiff knee. You never know where the day will take you. On this day, it was the Columbia Presbyterian radiology department so a technician named Irving could give me an X-ray.

A Slow Turning

When I think about myself as a teenager or young adult, I usually cast that recollection as a more ignorant or naive version of someone like myself now. Every once in a while, that perception is challenged.

Today I signed up for web design classes at the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT). As I walked around the building to register and get my student ID, I recalled visiting the campus as a high school student. At that time I was hell bent on going to FIT because I wanted to be a fashion director for a department store.

I am so far from fashionable now, it takes effort to recall that I used to focus on it obsessively. As a high school student I was most likely the sole subscriber to ID and Women's Wear Daily in my suburban Maryland zip code. I grew up in a conservative community where my theatrical 80s fashion risks stood out. Whether it was positive or negative regard, I was considered stylish.

There was only one class in my high school that took a trip outside of the county, and I made sure I got into it. The class went to New York City where I visited the FIT campus and decided it was the place for me. Unfortunately, my parents, who cultivated the expectation that I would pursue tertiary education, declined to provide financial support for me to attend FIT or any other school when the time came for me to apply. So I went to a community college and then transferred to a liberal arts school. It turned out to be a seven year odyssey to earn my tuition and complete my coursework for a degree.

In those seven years, I changed a lot. What I learned changed me, but I was changed most dramatically by financial circumstances. I was poor and couldn't afford clothes, hair cuts, cosmetics, or fashion magazines. I tended to work at two or more jobs simultaneously, so there wasn't time for much primping.

In bitter moments, losing my job has led me reflect a lot on my odyssey and how I valued a college education. At the time, I thought a college degree was my ticket to employment. I made sacrifices with the expectation of future reward.

In the twenty years since I graduated from high school, the world has changed. A college degree is about as meaningful as the high school diploma was when I earned it long ago. I now hold a master's degree and am having difficulty finding a job.

The fact that I have invested approximately $130,000 in education and 20 years in work experience and can't find employment is depressing. But when I think about it, and I rarely do, the circumstance that really saddens me is that I changed in ways I didn't like to accommodate a job market that has failed me. In fact, I changed so much I almost forgot who I was and what my initial ambitions were.

To be clear, I don't feel pangs of longing to be a fashionista. Department stores are fading as quickly as publishing houses, so my career circumstances would be just as dire. My regret is a more diffuse remorse about the choice to pursue a less creative path. That an effort to pursue a career I would have liked was supplanted by an expedient plan to do what I could to pay for school. Instead of shaping my future, my future was shaped for me by my environment.

The fact is, few people have the resources to control the course of their lives.

It was strange to be at FIT today, and to recognize that in an odd way I am realizing a long-dormant ambition to attend school at that institution. Like much of what life offers as one wends their way through circumstances, this ambition is realized in a way that doesn't match my expectations. Yet, I take it as a hopeful sign that things will work out in the end. The result will probably not be exactly as I envisioned it, but the bones of the expectation will be present.

The Uncanny Vacation

An unemployed friend has been meeting with me once a week to work on our job searches. He has two Ivy League degrees, including a MBA, and until recently, earned six figures. I was working on my CV when I heard him call a travel agent and book a vacation.

While his circumstances differ from mine (a vacation is a major expense even when I am employed), I marveled that he could enjoy a vacation at this time. Uncertainty erodes my enjoyment of any indulgence at this time. Unsure about what the future holds, I don't want to spend money now and regret it later. When I hear about unemployed people enjoying leisure activities -- taking vacations, traveling, or enrolling in art classes -- I wonder how they can be so relaxed while unemployed.

Last week events coalesced to allow me to spend the weekend in Cape Cod. A friend was spending the month in her boyfriend's family's house in Truro. She invited me to come up for the weekend. Another friend agreed to drive me there, with many rest stops to prevent blood clotting.

I rarely step outside of New York City. Most years I leave the city two or three times. Of course, I know that the landscape is radically different outside, but each time I leave the city limits I am surprised by the environmental shift that takes place within an hour of travel time.

Traffic was thick and we had to stop often, so it took about 8 hours to get to Truro. The longer emotional distance (from feeling limited, unemployed, and depressed to feeling like a hopeful, capable person) was transversed as well.

Traveling can be an indulgence in escapism, but it also is a way to gain another perspective. It was good for me to get out of my hot, dark apartment and away from the phone that wasn't ringing and the computer that didn't have the long-awaited email message. With the environment of job seeking replaced with a cool, light, and airy environment devoted to sunbathing, conversing, and cooking, there was no option except to relax.

It was also good to be introduced to new people. While I readily acknowledged my status as an unemployed person, most of my discussions were about other topics. Conversations with New York friends tend to be about recent events, but conversations with new acquaintances tend to touch on experiences over a lifetime. It was good to focus on the overall picture rather than the recent failing.

It is a cliche, but I returned home energized and better able to focus on my search. I am so grateful that I got this chance to temporarily remove myself from the current, oppressive unemployed experience to reacquaint myself with a more carefree existence.

Hello, This is the Universe Calling

This morning I was laid off.

I was called into a meeting in a large conference room with about 15 others, given a folder, and told that my position was eliminated effective today.

When I returned to my desk, I burst into tears and had difficulty talking with coworkers who stopped over to say goodbye. Now that I have cleared out my desk and turned in my badges, I feel an odd sense of calm.

The constant worry about losing my job was oppressive. Now that it has happened, I feel free to forge ahead full time.

I have been looking for work since I was laid off in the summer of 2006. At that time, the company decided to rehire me before I ever officially left the office. Basically, I just moved desks.

It felt icky to work at a place that laid me off and I wanted to move on, but the educational publishing job market was contracting and I find it difficult to look for work while I have a job. I know this is ridiculous but to me it feels wrong to sneak away from work to go on interviews.

I am hopeful that now that I can devote myself to a search full time, I will find something quickly. It is certain that I am motivated. I don't have a severance package, and the maximum gross unemployment for a month in New York won't cover my monthly rent (which is modest by NYC standards).