Spoiled Only Child

Wet blanket

We went away for a long weekend and did nothing but swim and eat and drink beer, and I was feeling so happy and full of possibilities. And then we came home and that old feeling descended almost immediately. I hardly know how to describe it. It feels like I am covered in a heavy wet blanket, every movement takes five times the usual energy, every task feels insurmountable. I crave stillness, sitting. I don't want to talk to people. This feeling seems to come to me fairly regularly these days, almost always on Mondays and unpredictably on other days. Too much time spent aimlessly on the computer seems to trigger it. It is so hard for me to get things done in this state. I look around and feel defeated by my messy house. I feel panicky at the idea of figuring out the interminable meals we have to eat. Playing with Mia takes every drop of my energy. I don't know what it is. Maybe I just hate responsibility.

I am sadly realizing that I am not an ambitious person. My truest career goal is to not have to work at all. It feels like my time to play around and figure things out, that time I had so looked forward to after being laid off, evaporated all too quickly. My dreams of roaming my neighborhood with a camera, doing volunteer work, cooking elaborate meals, where did they go? Now I am squeezed between a job that feels stressful and, possibly, futile and the responsibilities of childcare and errands and housecleaning. Oh my lord do I hate housecleaning, hate it with the fiery passion of a thousand suns. There is more of it than ever because I fired the housekeeper when I got laid off, and Mia and I now spend exponentially more time in the house. Every surface is covered in crap and, most days, I just can't bring myself to do a thing about it.

And the work situation is disconcerting. There's a good possibility that my job won't exist a year from now or that, even if it does, I won't want to be doing it. I feel incompetent in this new role. Sometimes I feel like the whole thing is a setup for failure. And then I keep hearing about this "double-dip" recession, and I think, "What if I never find anything else?" Or what if, possibly worse, I have to go back to a full-time office job?

My meditation practice is stagnating, deteriorating. I am back on the sleeping pills because I couldn't stand not sleeping. I want to try accupuncture for insomnia, but the logistics of figuring that out are just too much for me right now. I don't know what this post is about, except maybe a personal attempt to figure out why I often feel so weighed down and unable to move. I am not trying to be whiny, really, I am just trying to get something out, and maybe this is the plug that has been blocking the pipeline of words.

I need to write more. I think I need to spend a year or two on some crazy adventure and then write a book about it and get rich and never have to work again. But let's just start with writing more, even if it is non-sensical bullshit like this, written while eating a rubbery microwaved burrito and putting off the much-needed trip to the bank and ignoring the disaster of a house around me.

Hey, go read what I wrote about my vacation.

Happy list

I have three minutes to type. I am late getting back here with some non-whiny words, but better late than never. Some good things:

• Spring afternoons at the park. Spent a lovely afternoon at the park with Mia today. It was another resplendent sunny day, and we explored a funky little playground we had never been to before. We were the only ones there, and Mia happily created a pretend world where the play structures were houses and apartments. The image of her on the hillside picking a few of the millions of blooming buttercups is one I hope I'll always remember. Also had a poop emergency, which necessitated Mia's first poop in the woods. I wiped her butt with leaves. What an adventure.
• Swimming lessons. Mia is in swimming lessons, and she is so advanced that they put her in the group for the top swimmers. She's only had two lessons and she's already doing all the stuff she had become afraid of over the winter, like swimming independently, putting her head under water and jumping off the side. I love seeing her succeed.
• Dandelions. For years, I have seen dandelions as ugly weeds that would be better off dead. That is how I was taught to see them. And then I showed Mia how to blow the fuzzy dandelions and make wishes. Now, she exclaims with delight every time she sees "a dandelion!" She has picked dozens, maybe hundreds of them this spring. We have made too many wishes to count. Have you ever examined that fuzzy globe really closely or watched the seeds parachuting on the breeze? A dandelion is perfect, a whole universe unto itself, a treasure. Mia knows that without having to be taught.
• Great neighbors. We had an impromptu cookout with a few of our neighbors this weekend. I set up a kids table on the lawn, and the three girls ate dinner out there while the grownups sat on the porch laughing and drinking beer. Then, we ate a lovely salmon dinner while the kids watched a movie. I always hoped for a life where I drank beer with my neighbors, and now it has happened. A dream come true.
• Website development. After struggling and avoiding and spending hours getting nowhere, I finally figured out how to build my own website. A real one, with hosting and a content management system and its own domain name. (Until a couple months ago, I didn't even understand what that stuff was.) My sense of accomplishment is immense. Within a couple weeks I should have a professional website and blog that I can be proud of. More details to come. You, my loyal readers, at least the handful of you who are not my real-life friends, will soon know much more about me. Like my name, and where I used to work, and what I look like. I know you cannot wait.
• The non-office life. No matter how much I whine and moan, this beautiful spring of working from my sunlight-bathed couch, exploring parks and digging in the garden with Mia and taking the first steps out of my long, deep rut--it is an incredible gift. I promise not to forget it.

Where did my laid-off life go?

If I don't post something soon, I'm just going to have to close this thing up. But I have nothing for you. The layoff buzz is wearing off, and I am completely overwhelmed by my new job. I am trying to figure out the entire world of non-profits and raise enough my money to keep my job in existence in six months of part-time work from my living room. I'm like a chicken racing around in circles, with no idea if I'm headed in the right direction. I feel a lot of pressure resting on my shoulders, because it's very possible I will no longer qualify for unemployment after this six-month stint is over. There is a tiny voice in the back of my head asking, Are you working yourself into being trapped in another job that is stressful and annoying? I think I just need to accept that, in order to earn an income, I am always going to have to do some annoying things and give up some control over my time. But for the moment, this new endeavor is sucking up every moment of my daycare time and I'm not pursuing any of my other professional goals and I'm not writing and I'm spending most of my non-working moments either dealing with Mia or stressing over my ever growing to-do list, which is made up of crappy stuff like housecleaning and grocery shopping and going to the bank.

And I don't know if my attitude has changed or if Mia is just acting like a pain in the ass lately, but our afternoons have been less blissful for the past couple weeks. Like today, when I told her we were going to the children's museum, which caused her to literally jump for joy. But then when I asked her to go upstairs and get her shoes, all hell broke loose. She wouldn't do it, and I wouldn't do it, and so we had to do a half hour of her screaming and crying before we could go to the museum. It just feels like I cannot do anything, anything, without her demanding things of me and calling to me from the other room. Why can't she just come in the room where I am if she wants to ask me something, rather than calling to me over and OVER and OVER!!!!? And every minute she wants to be making arts and crafts, doing playdough, playing board games, pretending to be a dog, whatever--and all of it, all of it, requires my participation. She will not even walk upstairs by herself to get her shoes, even when I am doing 14 things at once and the reward for getting her damned shoes without assistance is a quick departure to the children's museum that she loves.

Sigh.

Now I am out of time, and all I have done is moan. Life really isn't so bad here in my sunny little oasis. I'm going to make it my goal to come back here tomorrow and write about some happy things. I think it would help me to try and focus on them.

Spring

It is spring! Beautiful, glorious spring. This time of the year when the trees are bursting into bloom, the birds are singing, the tender new leaves are just about to unfurl and the humidity and mosquitoes have not arrived, it is pure magic. Even more so when you feel like you are also experiencing your own rebirth. I remember this time last year, when I had so much hope that a few sunny spring days would erase the miseries of a dark and gloomy winter when our economy, and my profession, slid into crisis. But alas, all I got was a string of cold rainy days and a ride through my company's worst round of layoffs ever. But this year, so much has changed. Thank God I am no longer trudging up that gloomy stairwell to the office, wondering when things were ever going to get better. Thank God I am sitting on the porch on a sunshiny day, setting out on a whole new path.

I am still getting in the groove of my new job, figuring out how much time I need to give it, how to do it and how to balance it with the many other things I need and want to do. I'll get there, I'm sure. I am doing it from my living room, so I have a lot of control here. Maybe that's what is making me feel so euphoric--despite the fact that I am jumping into an unfamiliar job, making a good deal less money than before and still facing a pretty uncertain future. (This job is initially only for six months, and I have yet to find any writing work to supplement it.) But despite all that, I feel like I have control over my life again. Nobody can call me into an office and tell me that I have to start working the night shift. I don't owe any time to an office. I don't have to explain my whereabouts to anyone. I just have to engineer a life in which I can complete all the necessary tasks.

I would have a lot more time if I used my afternoons with Mia to do stuff like grocery shopping or cleaning, but I don't want to. We are having way too much fun reading books, going to the park, making art, baking, eating ice cream, playing with friends, going to museums, going swimming. This is time I'm never going to get back, and that is way more important than the dust bunnies on my stairs.

This weekend, we spent the weekend at our boat. And if there is anything that will remind you what is really important in life, it's a gorgeous sunny spring weekend at the coast. We went sailing and took bike rides. We strolled around looking at boats and hung out at the tiki bar at sunset. We drank coffee and ate ice cream. Mia and I spent hours hanging around at the water's edge, collecting snails. That is the kind of childhood I want her to have, mucking around in the river in her bare feet, collecting snails and examining pine cones. We are always thinking that the life we want or deserve is somewhere in the future. But weekends like that remind me that everything we need or want is here right now, waiting for us to discover it.

Unstuck

During my last week of work, my coworkers and I had a beer-soaked evening together at a local bar. It was a lovely night, but one comment keeps coming back to me. I suppose I had spent the past few weeks gloating, making sure everyone in the office knew that they did not need to feel sorry for me, that I was not just OK with being laid off but thrilled. So that was the context. But anyway, one of the members of senior management said as he was leaving that night, "I hope it's as great as you think it's going to be." Maybe you had to be there, but his words sounded to me like, "Enjoy your fantasy land while it lasts, because your bubble will burst soon enough." Now, I suppose this is only my fourth week of unemployment, and my vacation pay has not even run out yet, but I want to grab that guy by the neck and say, "It is every bit as great as I thought, more so!" But I guess the best revenge is living well, right?

Remember all those years of feeling stuck, of thinking that I needed a change but not knowing how to effect it, of applying and being rejected for jobs, of making lists of goals and accomplishing none of them? They're over. Suddenly, all the possibilities of the world have revealed themselves to me again. I am energized, perhaps too much so. My list-making is a little out of control at the moment. But I have heard laid-off people say that they don't know what to do with themselves when they are out of work. Really? Do you want to come to my house? I've got about 138 jobs I can assign you. So far, in my almost four weeks of being laid off, I have: gone skiing, stripped all the wallpaper from my bathroom (yes!), cleaned our closets and pantries of junk that has been collecting for seven years, read two novels, reconnected with about a dozen friends that I rarely saw before, meditated daily, cooked good meals, started an online course, spent many lovely afternoons with Mia reading, making art, baking and strolling museums, taken the first steps toward volunteering with refugees, signed Mia up for an art class and prepared four years worth of Mia's clothes and baby gear (which have been moldering in garbage bags in the guest room) for a consignment sale next weekend. I am on a roll.

Oh, and somewhere in there, I got a job. This week, I accepted a part-time job. A job that pays significantly better (on an hourly basis) than my old one, and will allow me to work from home on a flexible schedule and do something I believe in. It could not fit my life circumstances any better. After years of desperately wanting, and not finding, a new job, it suddenly feels like they are raining from the heavens. I hardly tried for this job; I told myself I didn't want it, and still I ended up with it. Then, yesterday, I got an email about a job I had applied for months ago and given up on. They hadn't filled the position yet, and did I want to interview? I said no. Not interested in a full-time job right now. And later that night, the US Census called to ask if I wanted a full-time temporary job. I said no again. Sorry, but these afternoons with Mia are too good to give up. So here I am turning down jobs! How can this be, after those long years of desperation? I suddenly see that maybe I can have more of what I want in this life. There are options other than the full-time office job. Lots and lots of options. Earlier this week, while Mia was in her art class, I took a walk around a lake on a beautiful spring-like afternoon--and I felt almost bowled over by my good fortune. I feel like I have made it to the mountaintop, after a long trek through a dark valley.

I know that I am in the honeymoon phase. I haven't even started the job yet. Surely, old problems will be replaced with new ones. And even with this job, my pay is down by about 25 percent, so if I'm not able to bring in any freelance writing, money will be tight. But right now, I just can't see how any of it will be as bad as working at my old job, swallowing misery after misery, sliding backwards, working the night shift, living in fear of what will come next, hanging on by the skin of my teeth while receiving no recognition for my work. This new life has got to be an improvement, doesn't it?

Is there some sort of wallpaper-related metaphor here?

Damn. I had visions of all the laid-off blogging I would be doing, but there is never as much time as you think there will be. Especially not when your daycare ends at 1:15 p.m., and you are trying to strip the godforsaken wallpaper from your godforsaken bathroom. What made me think that was a good idea, again? I think it was some kind of lay-off hysteria, making me believe that everything was possible. Now I am scraping this shit off bit by painstaking bit, and discovering an absolute disaster underneath. Now I know why someone, some horrible despicable person, decided to cover these walls with wallpaper. But what I will never understand is why they chose crazy pastel faux-Monet flower explosion wallpaper. With every square foot I scrape off, I realize how much more complicated this is than what I thought. We will have to remove the toilet and the vanity to get it all off. And then once the horrible, cheap vanity is removed, shouldn't we just go ahead and replace it--you know, with all our spare cash. And the lower halves of the walls are so bad that we are now considering tiling them. Won't that be fun, and expensive. And ... well, I'll spare you the rest of the details.

So ... where were we? Last week, my first official act as a laid-off person was to take a mini-ski trip. We found a super-budget deal and we went to West Virginia and had a blast for two days. I felt that the trip, while maybe not financially prudent, made an important statement about how I wanted to start this new phase of my life. Leaning forward, taking risks, pushing fear out of the way, and having a hell of a lot more fun than I have in a long time. Then I came home and recovered from the resulting head injury, and so this is my first real week of the new life. And the verdict is ... it's kind of freaking me out.

I told myself that I would give myself this one month to not work at all. To not work at finding work. To just recover, focus on fixing up my house a little (cursed wallpaper!) and allow myself to lie on the couch reading a book sometimes. But that is hard, harder than you might think. Because there is this fear that keeps trying to creep in around the edges, saying, "Quit wasting time! You might not be as secure as you think. You need to get going or you will end up poor!" The thoughts about what I should do, and what I need to do, and what I haven't done, start circling in my mind. And pretty soon I hardly know what I am doing, because the tornado in my head is thinking about what I need to do next, or what I don't have time to do. At least when you're at work, you know exactly where you are supposed to be and what you're supposed to be doing--however miserable it might be. When your time is a blank slate, or at least when mine is, I am faced with such an overwhelming array of possibilities. Should I clean the house, continue with my clutter purge, reconnect with friends, schedule meetings with professional contacts, look into creating a professional website, plan activities for Mia, cook, start writing a novel, read a novel, knit, exercise? Maybe I'll just strip some more wallpaper.

And then someone emailed me earlier this week with a freelance writing offer, and I about had a nervous breakdown. Because I didn't want to do it. They wanted me to write about a topic about which I know nothing, and so it would have taken a lot of time, and the pay was pathetic. But there was a part of me that said, "Who are you to turn down work of any kind? Money is money. And if you pass on this, maybe you will close more doors down the road. And what if you end up poor???" But if there is anything I don't want to do as I begin this new life, I do not want to make decisions based on desperation or fear. I am not desperate, and I don't want to behave like a desperate person. I don't want to run around after every low-paying assignment that crosses my path. I want to be methodical. I want to do it on my terms. Maybe that is too much to ask. I don't know, but I turned it down. And for the moment, I'm at peace with that. More time to strip wallpaper.

My afternoons are now all about Mia. We went to half-time preschool, and I am experimenting with this whole stay-at-home parent thing. I have to admit I've been nervous about this part. Sometimes on the weekends, being with her feels oppressive. Every minute, she is asking me to play, crawling on me, wrenching my back, making me ask her 14 times to put on her shoes, asking for milk or snacks, asking to paint, asking, asking, asking. It feels like, when she is around, I never get to do anything I want to do. So I decided that, on our afternoons, being with her is my job. I made a schedule, similar to her preschool one, and I am firm about it. I'm planning activities and crafts and outings. In three days, we have gone to a science museum, made stained glass with wax paper, baked cupcakes--and more. I might not be able to keep up this pace, but so far, our afternoons have been lovely. She responds to the schedule, and to my ability to be fully present with her. If nothing else good comes of this layoff, even if we end up poor (OMG POOR!!!), this time with her will have been a gift. I am not going to let myself forget that. 

Oh, and don't forget the wallpaper. Come hell or high water, that Monet explosion will be gone. Do you hear me, Wallpaper? I am going to kick your ass.