Unemployment: A Full-Time Job

I'm not going to lie to you: poverty sucks. There are many things that are awful about being unemployed, not the least of which is the lack of income for basic necessities. There is also the shame associated with not having a job or career. Americans (and possibly other countries as well) define themselves by their jobs. Most Americans will introduce themselves by stating their name and then their job or the company where they work. When you are unemployed, you lose that crucial piece of your identity.

I've been without a steady paying position for two years. I made a choice to move down to Orlando based on a job that turned out to be something completely different from what I signed up for. My leaving was a mutual dissolving of the work relationship. I have not had any position besides the odd temp job, the longest of which lasted a mere 3 months, since that time. I do my best to deflect the question when people ask me what I do. My resume is admittedly padded with the volunteer catechetical teaching I've been doing for my parish so that the huge gaping hole of time in which I have not drawn a paycheck looks a little more diminished than it actually is. I do my best to hide my unemployment from my daughter's school for fear that they will kick her out if they thought they wouldn't get their tuition money. They claim that they have tuition assistance, but I know that is not for someone living in poverty. It's reserved for families who suffer a sudden loss, not those who had nothing to begin with.

So, what makes unemployment a full-time job and where is the silver lining? Until recently, when I started to spend more time concentrating on doing things for my parish and with my daughter, I would spend more than half my time each day combing through emails and job postings. I would send off and fill out as many applications as I felt I vaguely qualified for. My resume, in all its revised editions, has been received over a thousand times, and that's not an exaggeration. I'm at the point in this sisyphean game in which I'm too tired to apply to jobs with the same gusto I had two years ago, or even one year ago. I get phone calls from 2-5 recruiters every other week and I send them the information, fill out the forms, give them the requested resumes, for which they ask, with no results. I really do spend at least 15 hours a week now applying for almost any kind of work, 45 hours a week up until December when I grew despondent, filling out the same forms with the same employment information over and over again. Anyone who is desperately unemployed has probably spent more time looking for a job than they would have spent being paid to work somewhere. That's not counting the time on the phone talking to recruiters or on phone interviews. That's also not counting the time spent driving to and from actual face-to-face interviews that leave you feeling confident for about 10 minutes and then either depressed or jilted afterward because you know they're not going to call you back. I actually relish the rejection letters I get because that lets me stop anticipating any possible positive outcome (I don't have "hope" anymore; see my hope blog post).

Okay, where's that positive spin that encapsulates the primary point of this blog? I will say that the time I don't spend hunting for a job, especially now when I'm losing a lot of steam, can be spent on other things. I have more time for my daughter. Being able to drop her off and pick her up from school at the regular times, instead of from after-care, gives us more time to talk and gives her more time to get homework finished. We are able to actually eat dinner together almost every day, the exceptions being when we are involved in something at the church in the evening. I am able to spend some of my non-job hunting time during the day to work on my crafting and sewing projects. I am able to take naps, which helps a lot when you consider how messed up my sleeping schedule is at the moment (insomnia + sleep apnea + bouts of depression do not allow for standard sleep cycles). When I am not worrying about how I am going to put gas in my car, or saying copious prayers that nothing happens to break down my car or computer or anything else major, I am actually a bit less stressed than when I was working. My days sort of flow now instead of fit together in blocks of time-crunch anxiety.

Don't get me wrong, unemployment and poverty suck. It's when I feel the crunch the most that I am in need of finding the positive in the situation and making better use of my involuntary free time. Luckily, I've always been pretty good at keeping myself occupied.

Why I Lost Hope but Kept My Faith

Hope vs. Faith: What's the difference? Aren't they both gifts from God? Maybe they are, maybe they aren't. Perhaps they are gifts that we give God as well.

Hope has become a "dirty four-letter word" for me. Aside from a brief 3-month project, 4 days "in training" at a pyramid scheme organization (so glad I got out when I did!), and 4.5 days as a temp, I've been unemployed since I moved here to Orlando in June of 2014. That's a very long time to be dependent on my parents and the little bit of assistance I get from "the government" for food assistance. That's a very long time to have nothing to provide for my daughter. That's a very long time to be a single parent battling depression (I suspect I have Seasonal Affective Disorder, though I've never been officially diagnosed because I can't really afford to see a psychotherapist). That's a very long time to hide the full truth of my financial situation from the world. That's a very long time to suffer heartbreak every time my daughter's school has an event in which she can't participate because I don't have the extra money to throw around like all the other parents. That's a very long time to not be able to purchase much-needed work clothes so that I can make a better impression in an interview and possibly get that job; I've patched, hemmed, and/or repaired every single pair of my work pants and it significantly limits me every time I have to take a pair out of circulation because there's only so much even the best seamstress can do to prolong clothing. That's a very long time to repress my true stress and anxiety levels as much as possible because I don't want people feeling sympathy for me or feeling bad for me; I don't want to be your emotional (or other form) charity case just so you can feel good about your existence and brush me under the rug again once you have expunged your "human duty" to feel for you fellow man, returning to your "perfect" life. That's a very long time (even longer for me, actually, because of the duality of lives that was my marriage) to have to justify every decision of my existence ["If you're so poor, why do you have ____ or why do you get to do ____?"]. That's a very long time for my already life-long ground-floor self-esteem to continuously find new bottoms to drop below. That's a very long time to give everything I have to try to insulate my daughter so that she suffers as little as possible, even at the expense of part of my own humanity (free expression of thoughts and emotions is necessary for mental health, but I must suppress as much as I can to make sure I don't burden her). That's a very long time to let only the bubbling over, tip of the iceberg emotions spew forth; there are too many "feels" still boiling inside and I get an extra double-dose of guilt any time I let even a little bit out, even though I know it's necessary.

So, why have I given up on hope? Before you mentally bash me as a whiny baby because "Hey! There are starving people in ____!" or "At least you don't have to deal with _____!", ask yourself if you use these guilt-tripping platitudes to shame the suffering person into "happiness" in a twisted psychological ploy, or if you use them to make yourself feel better by shaming them so you don't have to think about how much better you have it than the sufferer. Okay, so it could be worse. That doesn't make the bad situation less bad, it makes the bad situation seem more hopeless because there's still a bottom to drop out of the floor and is seems the world apparently feels you still haven't suffered enough because it could be worse still.

For me, hope has become illogical and meaningless. To have hope is to expect that what you want or need might come to pass. In my experience, hoping never did anything beyond causing more anxiety. Any time I hoped that this next interview would be the one to land me a job, I worried because my fate was in the hands of someone or something beyond my control; there was nothing I could do to affect the outcome. Hope means that I have to wait with baited breath, to roll the dice, to live in complete uncertainty of what is to come. Without hope, my anxiety level has dropped because I no longer count on things that may be but rather, I look at what is at the moment. I know some people would be shocked, worried, upset if I told them I have lost hope. I don't see the point any more because it only made my emotional situation worse without improving my real situation. Hope doesn't work if it is constantly dashed. Besides, why would HOPE be in a box with the world's troubles such as pestilence and war if it was such a good thing?! Hope is an empty promise, that's why!

Faith, on the other hand, is much more powerful. Faith is confidence or trust, a certainty. Rather than concerning itself with what might be, faith is the feeling of what will be. I have faith in God, in my parents, in my daughter. I have faith that our basic necessities will be provided--the promise of Saint Anthony of Padua is that God will not leave His people without bread to eat. I have faith, I do not have hope. I have cast aside wishes and desires. I now live with what is in front of me. If things change, for the better or if I find yet another sub-level basement to drop through, then they will do so of their own accord, without my increasing my anxiety levels and disappointment by hoping that the bad doesn't get worse. See, that's the thing with hope. When your wish doesn't come true it is even more devastating because your emotional level was elevated, so it has further to drop. Without hope, I can stay on the ground floor where less emotional damage can occur because I don't have as far to fall.

I am by no means advocating that anyone else give up on hope. I understand it can be a useful motivator for many people, especially those whose lives are particularly attuned to it. I'm saying that it doesn't work for me, personally. Do what works for you. No one needs to follow my footsteps because my path is not for anyone but me.