"IT'S TIME TO PUT THAT BAGGAGE DOWN"
I've been out of work for eight months. EIGHT MONTHS. This is shocking. It feels like only a few weeks. It also feels like forever. I no longer have any sense of the passage of time. Sometimes I think my memory is failing, but then I realize that I've done nothing in this time worth remembering. I honestly don't know how I've managed this. I have almost completely disappeared from life. I leave the house for groceries, to mail my rent check, and to run the occasional errand. I really don't see anyone or talk to anyone. I saw a couple of friends Friday night, and I felt as if I had forgotten how to behave. It seemed so strange that someone was actually listening to things I said. I was so self-conscious -- talking too fast and wishing they weren't looking at me -- I wonder if I appeared as crazy as I felt? I tried to tell them how depressed I've been, but I think they thought I was joking. It's getting harder and harder to imagine what it would be like to have a job to go to. To have people to talk to -- and to listen to. To go somewhere. To have fun. ...To be "normal." It's weird.
So yeah, I guess I'm pretty depressed, but it's a kind of depression I've never experienced before. I'm not necessarily sad, I just feel a heavy sense of hopelessness. I'm sure there are jobs I could do that won't suck the (remaining) soul from me, but I just don't know what they are. I don't know if I'm really as adept at the things I thought I was (judging by my last job .... I guess not).
I'm going through some sort of crisis, I suppose. Except that "crisis" is a word that carries with it images of some sort of sharp collision. There is nothing in my world at the moment that is sharp. There is no rushing to get to something (or away from something). There is no deadline. There is no direction. There is just a soft distant thud. Every day I wake up and feel a thud. "Another day." Thud. "It'll be just like yesterday. And tomorrow." Thud. "Should I take a shower today?" Thud. I'll feel a vague sense that I should be doing something, but, inevitably, nothing will get done. Over and over and over, an inability to function.
I know that my thinking is irrational. I know I'll get past this, if only because I HAVE to. My unemployment insurance has run out. My aunt has loaned me some money. I'm working on a project that might prove to be financially beneficial for me if it pans out, but that was something that just fell in my lap. I seem to be unable to PURSUE anything. I just don't think anyone wants what I have to offer.
I've never had many close friends. And now I don't think I have any. For the first time in my life. All of the people who had been close friends are no longer there. I have friends, but none that I feel I could call up anytime just to talk. (I'm sure they wouldn't mind -- and a couple might even WISH that I would open up to them.) All my life I've wondered why it's so difficult for me to make friends. I don't know why I'm like this. I am completely passive when it comes to meeting new people and sustaining any kind of close relationship. I would attribute it to a string of devastating rejections, but this began well before men were rejecting me. It sometimes seems easiest to give up. Or not even try.
I think I'm saddest at the moment about the loss of friendships. Not having a job is bad, but I just feel numb about that. I feel sad that I'm alone. Most people in my situation have a husband or wife or significant other or close circle of friends to keep them going, to encourage them and support them. I have no one. While I would be able to encourage others, I am incapable of doing that for myself.
I just read a memoir about a woman and her husband who both lost their very well-paying jobs and pretty much hit rock bottom after months and months of being unable to find new jobs. (I laughed when, in order to point out that she would have worked at ANY job, no matter how low-paying, she applied to work at Barnes and Noble but was turned down.) What saved her? She started a blog to fill her time and was discovered -- seemingly randomly -- by an agent. Of course she got a book deal. She has since published several books of humor that don't seem all that funny to me, but she has quite a fan-base. And they all lived happily ever after.
Part of my time here in the wild has been spent on a half-hearted attempt at finishing my own manuscript. It's basically done. But it just sits here. I'm looking at it now, just to my left, in two large binders. Formatted. Proofed. Done. I even have a connection to an honest-to-god big-time literary agent. I'm stuck. I can't seem to go any further. I don't know if it's fear or just a severe lack of confidence or just sheer laziness. I think I've written things that are equal to -- if not on occasion actually better -- than what I've read published by major publishing houses. It's not that I don't think I have ANY talent, it may be that I don't know if I'm prepared for the long road of rejection ahead. I'm pretty worn down already on that front. And, also, it's one of the few things I've ever really wanted: to have some sort of success -- however marginal -- as a writer. I want it too much to fail at it. And most people DO fail at it.
But what happened to my life? I want to have a life that matters. If only to me. And that isn't happening at the moment. I've got to get out of this tiny crawlspace of a world I'm living in, where my greatest accomplishment has been teaching my cat to fetch a toy mouse. I need to figure how to get back out into the world and sit at a table with friends and talk and laugh and feel like an adult and not like an awkward teenager.
As I said, I'm not really sad, I just feel completely numb and disconnected from the rest of the world. I've been thinking about the same three or four things over and over and over and over -- for eight months, without any distractions and without any let-up. Sort of like post-traumatic stress disorder (which I just looked up on Wikipedia, by the way, and its symptoms seem frighteningly close to mine).
So, in short (ha!), I'm tired of it. It's time to put that all behind me and move forward. I've been watching Jerry Seinfeld's web-only series "Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee" (which is wonderful), and the most recent episode featured Michael Richards. Richards talked about the meltdown he had on stage a few years ago that basically ruined his career -- it had taken a huge emotional toll on him, and the pain and regret on his face was obvious. Jerry listened seriously and sympathetically as Richards talked, and, when he had finished, Jerry said to his friend, "It's time to put that baggage down." I felt like crying when he said that.
It's time to move on, man. I can do it.
So yeah, I guess I'm pretty depressed, but it's a kind of depression I've never experienced before. I'm not necessarily sad, I just feel a heavy sense of hopelessness. I'm sure there are jobs I could do that won't suck the (remaining) soul from me, but I just don't know what they are. I don't know if I'm really as adept at the things I thought I was (judging by my last job .... I guess not).
I'm going through some sort of crisis, I suppose. Except that "crisis" is a word that carries with it images of some sort of sharp collision. There is nothing in my world at the moment that is sharp. There is no rushing to get to something (or away from something). There is no deadline. There is no direction. There is just a soft distant thud. Every day I wake up and feel a thud. "Another day." Thud. "It'll be just like yesterday. And tomorrow." Thud. "Should I take a shower today?" Thud. I'll feel a vague sense that I should be doing something, but, inevitably, nothing will get done. Over and over and over, an inability to function.
I know that my thinking is irrational. I know I'll get past this, if only because I HAVE to. My unemployment insurance has run out. My aunt has loaned me some money. I'm working on a project that might prove to be financially beneficial for me if it pans out, but that was something that just fell in my lap. I seem to be unable to PURSUE anything. I just don't think anyone wants what I have to offer.
I've never had many close friends. And now I don't think I have any. For the first time in my life. All of the people who had been close friends are no longer there. I have friends, but none that I feel I could call up anytime just to talk. (I'm sure they wouldn't mind -- and a couple might even WISH that I would open up to them.) All my life I've wondered why it's so difficult for me to make friends. I don't know why I'm like this. I am completely passive when it comes to meeting new people and sustaining any kind of close relationship. I would attribute it to a string of devastating rejections, but this began well before men were rejecting me. It sometimes seems easiest to give up. Or not even try.
I think I'm saddest at the moment about the loss of friendships. Not having a job is bad, but I just feel numb about that. I feel sad that I'm alone. Most people in my situation have a husband or wife or significant other or close circle of friends to keep them going, to encourage them and support them. I have no one. While I would be able to encourage others, I am incapable of doing that for myself.
I just read a memoir about a woman and her husband who both lost their very well-paying jobs and pretty much hit rock bottom after months and months of being unable to find new jobs. (I laughed when, in order to point out that she would have worked at ANY job, no matter how low-paying, she applied to work at Barnes and Noble but was turned down.) What saved her? She started a blog to fill her time and was discovered -- seemingly randomly -- by an agent. Of course she got a book deal. She has since published several books of humor that don't seem all that funny to me, but she has quite a fan-base. And they all lived happily ever after.
Part of my time here in the wild has been spent on a half-hearted attempt at finishing my own manuscript. It's basically done. But it just sits here. I'm looking at it now, just to my left, in two large binders. Formatted. Proofed. Done. I even have a connection to an honest-to-god big-time literary agent. I'm stuck. I can't seem to go any further. I don't know if it's fear or just a severe lack of confidence or just sheer laziness. I think I've written things that are equal to -- if not on occasion actually better -- than what I've read published by major publishing houses. It's not that I don't think I have ANY talent, it may be that I don't know if I'm prepared for the long road of rejection ahead. I'm pretty worn down already on that front. And, also, it's one of the few things I've ever really wanted: to have some sort of success -- however marginal -- as a writer. I want it too much to fail at it. And most people DO fail at it.
But what happened to my life? I want to have a life that matters. If only to me. And that isn't happening at the moment. I've got to get out of this tiny crawlspace of a world I'm living in, where my greatest accomplishment has been teaching my cat to fetch a toy mouse. I need to figure how to get back out into the world and sit at a table with friends and talk and laugh and feel like an adult and not like an awkward teenager.
As I said, I'm not really sad, I just feel completely numb and disconnected from the rest of the world. I've been thinking about the same three or four things over and over and over and over -- for eight months, without any distractions and without any let-up. Sort of like post-traumatic stress disorder (which I just looked up on Wikipedia, by the way, and its symptoms seem frighteningly close to mine).
So, in short (ha!), I'm tired of it. It's time to put that all behind me and move forward. I've been watching Jerry Seinfeld's web-only series "Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee" (which is wonderful), and the most recent episode featured Michael Richards. Richards talked about the meltdown he had on stage a few years ago that basically ruined his career -- it had taken a huge emotional toll on him, and the pain and regret on his face was obvious. Jerry listened seriously and sympathetically as Richards talked, and, when he had finished, Jerry said to his friend, "It's time to put that baggage down." I felt like crying when he said that.
It's time to move on, man. I can do it.