Unemployed for 3 years
I feel like I should preface this by saying I am so blessed to have a family that will catch me before I even get the chance to fall, and bandage my wounds. And ultimately, I know it will work out, but I just want to get to it working out.
I have been unemployed for nearly three years, and in that time I have taken different retail jobs, but even then it’s been hard to get them.
I just feel like my life has paused until I find a job.
It’s important not to let your job define you, but it’s what gives you access to the things that do.
Like, I can’t hang out with friends because I can’t afford the gas to get there, let alone parking and whatever activity or meal. I can’t go to someone’s house because everyone either lives with their parents or with 10 other people.
I can’t have the house, kids, and partner because I can’t afford it. And suddenly I start thinking maybe I don’t want kids or a partner, and sometimes I’m not sure if that’s what I really think, or if I think that because I know it doesn’t feel possible.
I can’t even go window shopping because I feel like nothing looks good on me, and even if it did, I couldn’t afford it.
I can’t show up for my community the way I want to. I can’t live life the way I want to.
Then I think about AI and the future, is it as good as we say it is? Is it better, or is it worse? What does that even mean?
Am I going to grad school for a degree that won’t matter in two years?
Then I start thinking, is this what my life is coming to? Is this what it’s all about, where I’m coasting off the people who care about me? Will this be forever?
Then I think, what am I doing wrong? Am I not smart enough? What am I missing?
I know it all works out, it always has, so it will. But the future I believe is so much brighter than today feels hazy and hard to see or understand.
I’ve come a long way, because this feeling would have crippled me before. But now I know it’s temporary, and I just have to keep going and have faith.
But sometimes it gets hard.
@callmeRM I also want to add that, although money or a job doesn’t buy happiness, it does give access to it. What I would do to be able to take my parents out to dinner and pay for it without a second thought, to take my niece to a store and get her whatever she looks at, to go lay on a warm beach with warm water, to host a dinner with everything I want in it, to donate to every homeless person I see, to tithe to my local church, etc.
It’s not the job or the money that brings me joy, it’s the people, experiences, and meaning, but I need money to do those things.
I am happy now, but there is this constant background noise where I feel like I can’t fully be myself, can’t fully live life.
I also recognize that when I get a job, something else will come up and the noise in the background will change, but it will still exist. There will always be something to stress about, but at least it won’t be something fundamental that I need to live.
I’ve stopped going to party and do all these expensive activities! Feel so much better! Relieved even. Realized later, just doing it to keep up appearances. Appearances of what? I’m happy? Mentally healthy? Was not until, a former classmate chatting over lunch mentioned “wow you did this and that!” “You need to post on socials, I really thought you were dying!” Dying from what, quietness! But yea, I do me now and cut certain friends and habits. There is no good from worrying only the lord, guides me now. 🙏🏼✝️🤍