Today is the first day of the rest of your life.
So the saying goes: today is the first day of the rest of your life.
Well, here I am, six months later, and wondering what to do with the rest of my life. Six months since getting laid off from a company where I spent the last sixteen years of my [working] life.
I worked in the marketing department of a very large company, and the pace at times was frenetic. Working with managers who spent three weeks out of a month on the road, leaving their assistants to man the office, to make decisions on their behalf, in order to keep the process from stalling. I loved it at first, actually for quite a long time, but the pace was starting to get stressful and fatiguing, probably because I was beginning to suffer from burnout.
At first, it was a welcome thought, the eventuality of not having a job (yet collecting severance for over a year’s time), since I had never had the prospect of not having to go to work since my son was born, 17 years ago.
The first few months were the most wonderful months; I got to clean my house, I got to get rid of clutter that had been hanging around for a while. I got to donate clothing, old clothing of both Dave’s and mine, to the Red Cross. And all this while still bringing in a paycheck, ind collecting unemployment. Life was good, no money worries, all the time in the world to do what I wanted, finally.
And I got to write.
I wrote fan-fiction, the pieces that I’d started a few years before. I got to add on chapters and to really think about and concentrate on the plot, the story that I wanted to tell.
I started delving into adding chapters to my own short stories, and continuing with my WIP that I’d been procrastinating on because I would be too tired to write when I got home from work.
Oh, it was wonderful. While everyone one else had to get up and dress warmly in several layers of clothing to keep out the winter cold, then going to a car to warm it up for the daily commute to work.
I got to stay at home, leisurely drinking my coffee, reading my emails, then settling down at the kitchen table to write. And all this was accomplished before noon.
Now, six months later, I find myself struggling to get up before 8:00, and the urge to write is more of a chore than a pleasure. It does’t help that it is hot as hell outdoors, sometimes even before 10:00, and then I remember that summer has never been my favorite season.
What the hell was I thinking? In February the prospect of being at home during the summer months seemed so exciting. Summers off, going to the beach in the middle of the week.
When I was twenty years old, this would have been the most exciting prospect. But I didn’t like summer all that much then, either. And now, as I’m older, I remember.
I hate summer. I am one of those people who sweats through the head, at the temples, on the upper lip, on the back of my neck. I hate sweating. With. a. passion.
So what was I thinking?
I know that a job does not define who you are, yet I miss the camaraderie of office mates, talking about mundane things. People who you have worked with for over ten years, people who you know so well, if only because you see them and work with them, five days a week, eight hours a day. People who feel like your family, even the ones who annoy the hell out of you. Because you are in the same office space, share the same lunchtime, and have adult things to talk about.
I never thought that I would miss it, but I do.
I haven’t the foggiest notion on how to do this, how to interview for a job when I have not had to do so, nor wanted to, for over ten years. I don’t know if things have changed, if what employers are looking for is different now than when I first started working so many years ago.
It scares me to think that I have to sell myself again, having to convey to a prospective employer just what contribution I can make to an organization. It scares me, but I know I have to do it.
I think it’s time to go back to work.
