I have lost my job again.
Yes, again.
For the second time in a little over a year, I am unemployed.
To describe how this makes me feel in detail would require me to give lots of information about my last job, so obviously I can’t do that here. And my two job losses are of a piece anyway, since they occurred so close together. I guess I can describe how it feels to be let go from one job, get another one a year later, and then get let go from that one the year after THAT.
I feel out of control.
The one detail I can share is that in neither case was it my particular fault. I was a good employee in both cases, and I didn’t do anything wrong. I know this intellectually, and most of the time I know it emotionally, too. But even if it wasn’t my fault, what could I have done differently? Surely there was something I could have said or done that would have changed things, right?
And that’s where the emotional part gets to me.
I am applying for other jobs, of course. Lots of other jobs. I have phone interviews and in-person interviews and all that. I weed the yard and clean the house and sew myself some new clothes. I do laundry. I go for walks. I apply for yet more jobs. I do everything I can.
My boyfriend was laid off on the same day I was. That didn’t matter much, because he had another job lined up, and there were only three days between when one job stopped and the other one started. He likes this one better already, and we’ll still have health insurance, so that’s good.
Two weeks after my boyfriend and I were both let go, my sister was laid off from her job. Then one of my boyfriend’s family members had to go to the hospital. Then a friend’s dog got a brain tumor and had to be put down.
Hang on, that doesn’t really describe that situation very well. How does one indicate that one was close to a dog? The dog’s owners are old friends, and my sister and her husband used to take care of the dog whenever they would go out of town, which was often. He got along well with Maude and Moki, so my sister would even bring him over to our house sometimes. He was in fact one of just five guests at my sister’s wedding, and I made him a flowered collar for the occasion. So how do I say that? A dog friend of mine had to be put down? A close dog friend died?
He was the same age as Maude is (thirteen), so that’s not great either.
It’s got me thinking about what people deserve. As an atheist, I don’t think there’s an entity that doles out things to people based on merit or anything, so it’s a strange line of thought for me to have. But all I want is to have a job that doesn’t suck and makes me enough money to live on, travel on (good god I miss traveling so much), and maybe buy a house with someday. That’s really all. Don’t I deserve that? Is that too much to ask?
Ask who, you say, and you’d be right. There’s a separate post in there somewhere about how, despite what most believers would say about atheism, I find mine to be enormously comforting. Most of the time.
So that’s how I feel about it.