It can happen anywhere – your desk, the movies, dinner, while you’re lying in bed – suddenly the fear creeps in. Your palms sweat and your pores ooze. The lights begin to flicker. Not again. The horror, the horror. Oh, Post-tramatic Layoff disorder (PTLD), how you taunt with your visions of unemployment dancing in our heads. So cruel.
I am nearing my four-month contract employment mark. Yay! It’s a big step when you’ve been unemployed on and off the past year or more and find yourself working again. It’s a pleasant feeling like freshly cut grass, Fall on the East coast or some sea salt as a snack. But something that occasional interrupts such bliss is the dreaded and mind-numbingly annoying flash back of unemployment.
Obsession over dates: It starts as simple as celebrating a week of employment and moves into the over-neurotic nature of counting down until you’ve hit six-months of employment. I personally am looking to remain employed past Jan. 16, 2010. I mean, of course I want to be employed longer and more permanently, but that would be a good start. Nothing says I’m awesome-and-wonderful like being employed a year later.
Re-occurring conversations on when you were unemployed: Remember that time I was unemployed? I was unemployed this year, twice. Did I tell you that? I learned so much… Shoot me now. Part of the joy of going through PTLD is reliving all the lessons you learned. Maybe I didn’t learn them right? Maybe I have more to learn? Maybe I need my friends and family should just start ignoring me before I turn into Charlie Brown’s teacher. It’s time to step-up and let it go — street style.
Life happens and that’s what unemployment and then re-employment teaches you. In the battle of appreciating what you have and learning to navigate the unknown just step up. Let go of the past and look towards the present. My inner self that likes to control everything is slowly letting go of all things in the universe I can’t control. That is not to say that if by some magical power I gained control of the universe that I wouldn’t use it, but for now I’m conceding. Some lessons in life are able to be learned. Just don’t tell too many people.
