The First Week

The job ended last Friday. Since then I have:

got my eyebrows threaded for the first time, which was pretty painful but not as bad as plucking, which I can’t even do correctly anyway;

applied for five jobs;

gone out to lunch with some very lovely friends and had some excellent conversation;

had at least two full-on, industrial strength meltdowns: crying, shaking, wailing, everything;

been very tired;

spent a lot of time in the kitchen: three batches of cookie dough in the freezer at least (ginger-lime, coffee-chocolate, and plain old oatmeal raisin, although I added some dried apricots because I happened to have them on hand);

read a couple of books;

gone to a conference about a professional subject I’m interested in—to be fair it was on my second-to-last day at the old job, but I went anyway and paid for it myself, and it was pretty good—very different to what I’ve done in the past, work-wise, but I think I could probably do it if I got the chance;

had a coffee with someone I met at that conference. She said, within a few moments of conversation: “You should do your OWN projects. You should start your OWN organization.” This blew my mind and I have been thinking about it ever since;

pitied myself a lot;

got angry at myself for pitying myself because people have it a lot worse than I do and surely it’s only a matter of time, right;

organised my under-the-bathroom sink and done another major wardrobe cull;

got my knives sharpened and then immediately sliced my thumb open on one of them;

read a lot of the internet;

felt pretty ashamed to be almost forty and apparently unable to support myself with, like, a job or whatever;

been offered a couple days’ work next week at a friend’s craft shop, to help her fill in while she’s away. I have never worked in a store before but another friend of mine works there too and assures me working the till is not too traumatic. I am secretly hoping there will be some buttons or fabrics or patterns for me to label neatly;

canceled my hair appointment;

noticed how much I’ve aged in the past year: white hair, now, and wrinkles around my mouth I notice every time I walk by a reflective surface;

thought about leaving New Zealand and going on a major multi-month trip;

thought about leaving New Zealand and going on just a month’s trip;

thought about just staying here in Wellington, I guess, and not going on a trip at all;

missed my mom;

tried to learn to do push-ups;

attempted to reject shame re: joblessness. It happens. It wasn’t my fault. I’ll find something soon. It happens, right? It happens;

thought about other times I’ve been unemployed (there have been MANY of these times) and how somehow it has never seemed as dire as it currently feels;

thought about the weird thing where, like, there’s a lot of people out of work and then there’s a lot of people who just work ALL the time, like all they ever do is work, even when they’re not at work they’re working, and that’s seen simultaneously as really really good and really really bad, and is this the future the industrial revolutionaries, if that’s the phrase I want, were planning for;

made plans to go up to the farm with my friend for Christmas;

thought a lot about the future;

wondered how to got to where I am now;

wondered what will happen next.