So it’s been over 6 years since I was laid off, but I do remember the devastation. I remember the lack of confidence, the guilt, the feelings of inadequacy. My friend Pam calls being on unemployment “living the dream,” and it’s so not. It would be if not for all of that emotional crap. All of the roller coasters- interviewing, getting turned down, interviewing, getting called back for the second interview, getting turned down.
We don’t know yet if Dave will live “the dream,” but if he does, at least it will pay the rent until he finds something else. But I hate to see him like this. The weekend was full of distractions, but once we got back into (at least my) daily life on Tuesday, the depression kicked in. He was Mopey McMoperson. I went shopping with Keith and Sarah (Sarah wanted discount name brand jeans but didn’t know how to shop for them- and I am better at finding expensive jeans on sale than I am at just about anything else) and Dave didn’t want to go b.c he wanted to mope.
I don’t have a problem with his moping b.c I remember what it’s like. It’s an emotional headwind. You’re constantly trying to show people why you’re valuable as an employee, which feels like trying to show people why you’re valuable as a person. While trying to convince yourself that you ARE valuable despite the fact that the last 20 resumes you sent out got you nothing and the last 4 interviews got you not much more. It. Sucks.
But he’s doing better now, as am I. (The 2 might be related!) It occurred to me yesterday that maybe this was a signal from the universe that he was on the wrong path. They say that when you’re on the right path the doors will open. And when you’re not? Those doors may as well be part of the wall. It’s like when I wanted to go to Naropa for a Masters in Art Therapy and my rent car clock was 20 minutes fast and I didn’t know, so I started stressing, then I got lost driving from Denver to Boulder (wait, why are the mountains BEHIND me?) and got to my interview 45 minutes late (really 25 minutes late) after first stopping by the wrong campus. And then the next day for the second part of the interview, I got completely lost (turns out there’s a THIRD Naropa campus) b.c they hadn’t given me the packet for Day 2 in my Day 1 interview due to its brevity. That, my friends, is called being on the wrong path.
So I stayed in Houston and within the next year I rode my bike to Austin, went to Alaska to visit my sister and then I got a job I loved, met Dave and later got my current job that I’m still enjoying.
Dave’s termination from his job was so random and out of the blue that it can only be a (VERY CLEAR) message from the Universe. Dude wasn’t supposed to work there. We don’t know what he’s supposed to do, but hopefully it will have a happy ending like this one.
