Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Unemployment.

I quit my job at the end of August, and though the first few weeks were a flurry of activity - moving out! wedding at the ends of the earth in Maine! moving to the Cape! - the ensuing weeks have been at a bit slower pace.

Unemployment is a funny thing. On the one hand, it feels sort of like a vacation, and I just want to relax. On the other hand, I know myself and that can easily I slip from "relaxing" to "obscenely lazy".

I got myself into a pretty good schedule pretty quickly, or rather, as much of a schedule as I could manage while being "funemployed". The weather on the Cape in the autumn is just beautiful, without the hassle of the crowds that come with the summer months, and so far it's stayed pretty warm. It was a few weeks of going for a run regularly, taking the dog to the dog park in Provincetown, going swimming, going to the beach, hitting the library, etc. Then I hit The Wall.

It started after a fun weekend with some girlfriends that came to visit, and I felt like I needed a day of recovery, so I parked myself in front of the TV for the day.

And that turned into two days.

And it snowballed from there to where I hadn't showered and was wearing the same pants for 4 days in a row. I watched so much bad TV, I could feel my brain cells dying. It didn't feel good, I didn't feel relaxed; I felt like an invalid, like a disgusting sloth. And yet, I couldn't pull myself out of it.

Luckily, another friend was coming to visit, so I managed to get it together before she arrived, and since then have gotten back onto my "schedule". But still. MAN, what was that?!

I consider myself incredibly lucky, that I have this time to be unemployed, without actively looking for work. I want to use the time wisely, and better myself, or work on a project that I wouldn't normally have time for when working full time, and yet I'm here on the Cape! It's so relaxing here, it's almost like a drug. I guess I'm just looking for balance. There are no external forces telling me what to do or when, no policing of my time, no real responsibilities for me to blame for my lack of time to work on what I want. Instead, the question looms large: what do I want?

This is a huge part of what we're doing; why we left our house, why I quit my job, why we're moving to Australia. What do I want? What do we want? What have we been doing that we can live without? What makes us happy? Big questions. Important questions. I feel like they should be easy questions. But they're not.

In the meantime, we still don't have a place to live in Australia. I'm not sure if we will before we arrive there in mid-November. Have you ever had to apartment search from a difference hemisphere? It's incredibly disconcerting, thinking about committing to living in a place that you haven't seen in person. It's a study in trusting humanity. On the one hand, I do believe that most people are good and trustworthy. On the other hand, crazy people flock to the Internet like seagulls to my french fries, and it's hard to tell if they're on the up-and-up. Especially if they misspell things in their apartment ad. I guess for me, good grammar and spelling equals trustworthiness?

However, almost equally disconcerting is moving 10,000 miles away without knowing you have a place to live when you land. QUANDARY.

3 comments:

  1. Pursuitcase of Happiness...that's adorable. I'll often fall into slothness, it's dark and scary place. Even when working (from home) I'll find that I haven't showered recently enough to go out in public. And then, I'll realize that a few days of life just slipped by me. Aw man! I've discovered that I lack self-discipline. So, I've institutionalized myself. Not in the mental hospital way - but in the way that if I want to learn something, I have to be in a class. Right now I'm taking art history and Spanish classes. Because as much as I wanted to DIY-it, the sloth in me just couldn't allow self-instruction.

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  2. Here, I found a place for you to stay in Sydney - it's got a pull-out sofa and half a bathroom - SCORE! http://www.airbnb.com/rooms/240550

    You're totally welcome, by the way.

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  3. Perfect!!

    Wait, holy crap, the monthly price for that puppy is $1528! And I'll bet that doesn't include gas...

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