Unemployed and awesome.

My credo for the last couple of weeks has been “I’m going to have the best unemployment ever!” I’m no overly saccharine optimist; I just see a lot of opportunity in being free of a 9-to-5 commitment.

To me, having a gap between projects is something rare, and I take it as karmic intervention: This break between formal work was meant to happen. My body reacts to moments of stress by doing stuff like giving me ulcers (at the tender age of 14) or blocking my salivary glands when I’m overloading myself. I believe Fate, in the most casual and non-religious sense of the word, likes to pull the plugs on people’s patterns, too, and you can only go wrong in thinking that any change that takes place means “Stop” or “You’re not worthy.” The words “unemployed” and “awesome” are not mutually exclusive. I am currently unemployed, awesome, female, blogging, wearing glasses, and sitting in bed all at the same time. And I could chew gum if I wanted to, too.

I may be guilty of putting too much stock into high school English archetypes, but I believe it’s healthiest for our minds, bodies, and souls if we all interpreted our life events as heroes’ journeys. I view every “hardship” and every “challenge” as a rite of passage: I’ve been hungover, I’ve been cheated on, I’ve lost loved ones, I’ve tried marijuana, I’ve even tried – I’ll stop. There are some necessary events you’re supposed to go through, and though Life promises you extremes, things always balance out in the end.

Typical things I think “heroes” my age ought to be going through:

1. Being single. I don’t care who you are, if you define yourself solely based on who you are in a relationship with, you are not a hero. You should never need someone else – not in the “love” sense of “need,” as propagated by love songs, but…you know what I mean. I hope.
2. Moving out. This varies by culture, but if you can’t be yourself or take care of yourself when you are by yourself, you are not a hero. You have to sleep without the light on at some point.
3. Shitty apartments. First off, lemme say I love my landlord and I am grateful to have my own digs, period. But there are quirks to this place, and there are also major letdowns. I don’t like walking home by myself at night, my friend thinks I live next to a crack den, my boyfriend’s car was stolen from in front of my apartment, and every time my upstairs neighbor has sex, I fear that her boyfriend is going to fuck a tunnel through my ceiling, crushing me underneath their LOUD and squeaky bed. (Presumably with them on top of it as well.) But really, this is necessary, isn’t it? Everyone’s got to live in a shithole with noisy, fornicating neighbors at least once. Makes the skin tougher. Makes for good conversational anecdotes. (People love comisserating.) And makes you appreciate “moving up.”
4. Leaving a job/Losing a job and not knowing the “next step.” I once heard that “Having plans is overrated.” I’ve had to remind myself in the last couple of weeks that I was the one who said this, and it has saved me from unnecessary stress and worry. Things pan out in the end. You cannot control everything and you are not meant to. You just gotta make do.

So how am I dealing with #4? To me, this is what it means to be unemployed and awesome: Taking chances and taking stock. – And also just catching up at a snail’s pace. Photoshopping. (Like my header?) Winning Kids in the Hall tickets. Filling our itinerary for New York. Tagging my Flickr photos. (What was up with Flickr today, anyway?) Shipping my Diors to their lucky eBay winner. Replacing my Social Security card…

I have a superstition that ghosts get stuck in limbo when they die with “unfinished business.” Thanks to these last couple of weeks, I’m tying up loose ends and ensuring a safe and pleasant trip to my next life.

I’m streamlining my life, running errands without the concern of what’s an acceptable lunch hour, identifying what I miss from working Monday through Friday, identifying what I missed out on because of working Monday through Friday, and enjoying downtime the likes of which I have not seen since high school.

Right now, for instance. As I look at the clock, it is 1:46 a.m. I have not stayed up this late to do something as self-centered as blogging in years. I feel the odd rush of college all-nighters, trying to finish a three-week paper in one evening. I know I shouldn’t make it a habit, but it’s energizing. To get so caught up in something that you don’t want to go to bed.

When it first hit me that my income had been ceased, I was quick to judge my friends’ suggestions of applying for unemployment. Applying for something is the same as defining yourself as that thing, and wasn’t unemployment for the uneducated, unmotivated, and untalented masses? How dare anyone propose that I belonged in that circle? But they slapped some sense into me and I got wise. I’ve got tons of time to think and live outside the box I’ve known, and I’m really enjoying what Dance Buddy* refers to as “The summer I never had.”

I always wanted to be a starving artist. Now might be my chance!