335 Days After Being Laid Off

It's been 335 days, 3 completely different drafts of this article, and several stress induced outbursts since the day I was laid off from my job of 4 years and 3 months. I've watched friends change careers, people lose their houses, Barack Obama buy America's largest corporations, and my bank account ride a rollercoaster of epic proportions.

I've lived every emotion known to man, sometimes all of them within a matter of hours. I've gone from needing to borrow money from loved ones, to breaking even, and even to paying off debts I held for more than 4 years. I've made more money in one day than I ever could in a week at my old job, and over-drafted my bank account no less than a dozen times. There were days I screamed at myself for choices I had made in the past that may have led me to where I am now, and days I have sat and thanked God that I ever made it here at all.

I once spent 15 hours in a day searching the internet for a job that could save me from my free Government check and the total humiliation that came along with depositing it at my local bank where people knew me by my first name, and knew everything they needed to know about my life just by the color and size of the check I was depositing. People I have never sat and shared my views on politics, religion, and social issues. None of these things mattered to these people. They knew me for my returned check fees, my quick-witted humor, and propensity for sandals and fashionably worn white cotton t-shirts.

After that 15 hours of searching for jobs online, I applied to none of them that day. I sat and tried to write this article. I deleted it 3 months later realizing it made no sense. I applied to jobs the next day, and every day after that until I found one that would pay the bills while I figure out what to do next.

I'm still trying to figure out what's next.

People that used to read my writing last year emailed me asking why I stopped writing. I couldn't answer them. How do you tell people you don't even know, that you feel like a loser. How can you write about Reform bills awaiting Congressional approval when you're looking for change under the seat of your car to pay the water bill?

You can't.

I stopped reading the news. I stopped being mad at people for electing Obama as my president. How can I care about him ruining our country when things really can't get much worse for me as things are right now? In the spring I got a check from the Government. Obama wanted me to spend it on a new plasma screen tv or maybe even on a vacation to Las Vegas to boost tourism and help the GDP. I used the money to pay my rent.

It only paid half.

Things got better. I found a job, came up with some plans for the immediate future, and even paid off some long over due debts. I went to Boston for the 4th of July, and ate some of Grandma's cooking during a 5 day stretch that I wished would last forever.

I came home to find out I had over drafted my bank account again.

When I tell people I was laid off last December, they feel sorry for me. They look at me with a look that they assume will make me feel cared about or somehow convey that they understand what I'm going through. I feel bad for making people do anything but smile. So I make jokes to push aside that awkward moment.

Awkward for me.

I don't really care how it felt for them.

I'm not writing this with the intention of grabbing attention for myself or supplying people who read it with a sense of emotional connection with someone who is going through what we hear about on the news almost daily.

I'm writing this at 3 in the morning after 3 tablespoons of extra strength cough syrup after working for 13 hours.
I cannot sleep a whole night since I lost my job. My head is filled with new projects, new ideas, possibilities that never seemed attainable before.

Losing my job wasn't the hardest thing I've had to face in my life. It was a moment. A brief instant not unlike that feeling you get when your alarm clock jolts you from your bed, ripping through your dreams, confusing you as you search for clarity and the coordination to get back to where you feel comfortable. That comfort comes as you find the snooze button with one eye cocked open and your hair in your face. The peacefulness that follows as you hit snooze on the alarm is quite possibly the greatest never mentioned feeling that exists.

That feeling is how I feel every time I stop to breathe, and admire the past 335 days. I was shaken from my dreams, and I''m running on snooze sleep with a smile on my face. I never liked my old job. The company I started this year is on track to put me on easy street for years to come. I smile when my alarm clock tears me from my dreams in the morning. I relish every opportunity to fight the current I've been swimming against since the day I was laid off.

For 335 days I survived something that breaks some people forever. I became someone stronger for it. I sometimes think I want to thank the people that laid me off that day as it's fast becoming what feels like forever ago.

I still haven't spoken to that part of my family yet though.

Maybe tomorrow.