I’m coming up on my two month unemployment anniversary. E-cards aren’t necessary at this point. Please hold off on sending flowers, and offering me Facebook wall congratulations as well. We have a very open relationship and I believe that my unemployment doesn’t think I am as special as he is to me. It’s not stopping me from looking for that perfect gift. However, I think it’s still a bit early for the unemployment forever wrist tattoo. That’s a hefty commitment to someone who is still seeing more than a million other people at this time. Maybe a few hundred thousand and I’d ink myself, but I draw the line at a million.
Unemployment isn’t a big fan of material gifts. With all those relationships he’s a bit cashed strapped right now. I’m doing all the cooking, cleaning, and grocery and item buying. I don’t complain. I’m happy to at least have the company. But he’s starting to bore me. What I’d really like to do is end our relationship. It’s a bit too one-sided for me. Yes, he did force me to look at my life and make some changes. I’m not perfect either. I promised I’d run everyday and we see how that went, but I am still learning French and slowing working through PHP. I’m grateful for that. Not grateful enough for ink, but maybe a wall picture and a dedicated love song.
I told my friends last night that this week I have been unemployed for two months — not counting the contract work. One of my friends look horrified, apologized for looking horrified and then said she’d have jumped off the cliffs at Ocean Beach if she was unemployed for two months. That’s when I realized that my unemployment relationship is becoming toxic. It’s starting to weigh on me. When I first became unemployed I wasn’t letting it define me. I was iron-willed and dedicated to coming out of it quickly. Two-months later and I find myself with the same issues I had when I first became unemployed. Struggling with all insecurities about being laid off.
It hit me hard this weekend that I have to let this stuff go. The stuff that says you were laid off because you a horrible, no good, very bad person who should never have a job ever again –ever — and tells me I’m still unemployed for the very same reasons. I constantly scrutinize the work I produce and make myself ill when I feel like I’ve made a mistake. This is not in the code for how to be good at life. It’s in the code for how to be stuck in the cycle of doom and toxicity. There are no bright and shiny days in the cycle of doom and toxicity. It’s a place with no Franken Berry cereal either. It’s words that you say to yourself that eat you away the most. I know the true damage I can do to my psyche and I’m done with hurting myself. I’m over it. I just hope my unemployment will be okay with out me. He can be a bit too clingy.
