Blakely+L

Getting laid off sucked, but being unemployed was weirdly delightful. I felt un-hemmed-in for the first time in ages. My time was my own. My hair was my own. I dyed it blue.

I woke up eagerly every morning, not reluctantly. Not resentfully. I stopped buying trouser socks and bought black socks with stars and rainbow-striped socks and socks with monkeys on them. I slept in and stayed up late. I hung out at my favorite coffee shop and made a point of forgetting all the administrivia of my old job: my login password, my employee ID, my office phone number.

There were stresses, of course. I worried about what I would do when the money ran out. I applied for jobs and doubted my own self-worth when I didn’t get them. Which was odd, since most of the jobs were not all that different than the job I’d recently lost. The job I'd hated without realizing I hated it until it was gone.

Being unemployed was a guilty pleasure, like reading romance novels or eating Cheetos. I read romance novels and ate Cheetos. I was supposed to be bummed. People gave me sympathy and I didn’t know what to do with it. I was cheerful. Absurdly so. People told me I was handling it well. I thought, "You have no idea!"