I’ve made it through five days of unemployment and two of them were the usual weekend. I have created a giant list of things to do to keep me busy and have dedicated at least a couple of hours each day to connecting with people and looking up jobs. Because I’ve got about 40 different crafty projects I’ve started in the past that are left undone, there isn’t much of a shortage of things to keep me busy, the last two “working” days have gone by fast.
Yet I’m sitting here tonight, a bit unsettled and feeling a downward slide coming on. So I’m trying to reorganize a bit to combat what could end up being a decent depressive time period.
First, I need to note that it’s important for me to feel everything. That includes the happier feelings about not being at a job I didn’t like as well as the sad and depressive feelings that come with getting laid off again. I’ve always wanted to be good at something, but I never wanted it to be unemployment or job hopping. So needless to say, as someone with a couple of college degrees who has been told that she’s smart, I’m pretty much feeling like a giant loser right now.
So when I’m talking about trying to combat an impending depressive mode, it’s not that I’m trying to make lemonade out of lemons, it’s just that I’m trying to stay in some type of zone where I’m still functioning. The depression I’m referring to would be the type where I’m hanging out in loungewear all day, eating ice cream 4 times per day and binge watching anything or everything. I’m attempting to give myself permission to feel lousy, but find a way to wallow in that for a few hours, then at the very least, get up and make something for lunch besides cereal.
I started out doing pretty good about sorting through my stockpile of stuff in the basement, and I’ve made progress. Then last night I got sidetracked into doing a few little crafty things that I didn’t fully finish. Today has been a bit of ping-ponging back and forth between little projects and I think instead of feeling like I’m making some type of progress in my life, it did the opposite. Perhaps it fractured my already topsy-turvy mind into more little pieces. So, tomorrow I will refocus a bit and see if I can pull things back together.
I knew that there would be moments of depression, some big, some small, which is why I started the giant to-do list in the first place. However, it may be a good idea at this time to prioritize that list and give myself a bit of a break. I know I have some time to figure this out and that I don’t have to get a job by tomorrow – I’m very lucky in that fact because I know that isn’t true for a lot of people. I’ve had a headache for two days, actually it’s more like an allover stress body ache, and I know it’s because I’m pressuring myself to get all my projects done, learn to cook, keep the house clean, figure out what I want to do with the rest of my life AND find the perfect job, all by next Monday. Well, that just can’t happen. It’s simply not physically possible.
So, step two to surviving unemployment is to just breathe for a moment. Stand still long enough to let the panic hit and wash right over. I think that I’ll do that for the rest of the night. This would be a great time to listen to Rob Thomas’ “Breathe Out” song – good for reminding me to chill the heck out.
