Jobhave

Normally, when there are weeks and weeks in which I don’t update this blog, it is safe to assume that nothing has happened in my life and that I have continued to watch NCIS marathons and eat gummi bears in excess.  However, this is not the case this time around.

I should probably note that while I am writing this, I am listening to a report on NPR about how multitasking is a psychological myth and that people who attempt to do multiple things at once (such as listen to NPR and write a blog entry) are proven to be bad at both.  I am not sure I believe them, though: I think so far I am doing it pretty wlel (sic.).

Yes.  I have not been sitting on my couch, because for over a week I have not had a couch.  In fact, right now, I am not even in the same state as my bed.  Right now, I am in New York.  Why am I in New York, do you ask?  Well, let me tell you why.

I am in New York because I moved here.  I moved here because I got a job here.  Isn’t that exciting?  It is definitely exciting.

I mean, it’s not exciting yet, because I haven’t started it yet (tomorrow is my first day).  But the fact that I got a job after almost 9 months of unemployment: very exciting.  Even if it’s not a glamorous job, or a job I plan on doing for the rest of my life, it is employment, and it will pay me well, and I will be able to do things like purchase fancy soap again.  It also helped me to accomplish my goal of moving away from St. Louis—which was sort of an unofficial goal, because although it was a desired outcome, I would have taken a job in St. Louis if I’d been offered one.  Or even if anyone there had wanted to interview me.

So in short, I was lucky during unemployment to have a place to live and a family that could help me get by, even though things were tight.  And I’m lucky now because I’ve been able to relocate to a fantastic city and take a job that is going to be different and challenging for me.  I’m going to have to get used to living here, which could take a while, but so far it seems like it should be easy.  I mean, for fuck’s sake, there is a Target like three subway stops from me.  And it doesn’t require a 14-minute walk up or down a huge-ass hill.  Fan-fucking-tastic!

Bad things about the move include: all of my furniture, most of my clothes, and everything else I still own are all still in St. Louis, sitting in my vacant apartment.  I have not heard from the movers, who were supposed to have picked up this stuff last weekend.  Also, I have to pay rent in St. Louis in October and the rent in New York in October.  I know I’ll figure something out—I don’t know how, but I will.

So tonight is the last night in my unemployment saga.  My old voice teacher, who is like a second mother to me, always used to ask me the following question about traumatic life experiences:  What did you learn from this?  So what have I learned?

I’ve picked up on a few necessary grown-up type things, like knowing my limits financially and learning (through error) the value of saving money for a rainy day.  I’ve learned a lot about working through tough experiences, about dealing with rejection on an almost daily basis, about how to work through depressions (both economic and psychological), and about the importance of friends and family in my life.  Luckily, the friends and family lesson isn’t one I had to learn the hard way: instead, I got to learn it the cushy, easy way, but having great friends and a great family before my life got put in a blender, and still having them all when a delicious smoothie came out.

So the hardest part about leaving St. Louis by far was saying goodbye to everyone who means so much to me.  It made it slightly easier afterward to know that they were all so excited for me and so happy to see me get something so great.  But it didn’t make the proper goodbyes any easier.  So for anyone who is reading this who commiserated with me while we were both unemployed, who bought me lunch, who called me to make me leave my apartment on my worse days, who drove me to the unemployment office, who sent me encouraging cards and Facebook messages and emails, who gave me a reason to shower and put pants on, who gave me advice, who referred me to people for jobs, who looked at my resume or read over cover letters, who relieved me of household goods and furniture before my move, who helped me pack, who said “I love you” in the past nine months: thank you.  Your support, empathy, and general wonderfulness made this experience educational instead of terrible, and it’s largely because of your friendship, love, and encouragement that I was able to come out of this situation a better person, and that I was able to accept such a wonderful opportunity.  So thank you a million times over.  And of course, if you ever need a couch to crash on in the big city, you’ve got mine.

Also:  this blog isn’t dying because I’m employed.  It’s just not going to be about unemployment anymore.  Because let’s face it: just because I have a job now doesn’t mean I’m not horribly in debt.