So, when I get busy I don’t have as much mental space that enables unique thought. The mind’s doorway narrows and gets crowded with odds and ends: calendars, schedules, post-it notes, undone to-do lists, dirty kitchens, crumby, cluttered floors and year old cobwebs. I’m not implying that I’m a brilliant poet/intellectual when I have free time. I’m saying that I’m really not brilliant when I’m busy. No, that’s not true. I’m in a different sort of busy these days. I’m “busy” with quotation marks made by both your hands. I’m “busy” and I’m reacting to “busy” in a strange way.
I’m way past that “Wow, I’m unemployed and man, is this fun” stage. I think I’m at the “I should really start working now” stage. I think I’m thinking of all the things I should be doing. I’m working a little each week, but I still have a good amount of down-time every day. I think the less I do, the more I stress about things, and the larger the tasks seem … and the more incapable I feel. Here are pictures to match the thoughts:
If I were on Hell’s Kitchen I’d feel a true sense of busy. No quotation marks needed. Where do I sign up? Naw, I’m way to scared of Chef Ramsay.
I was out in the backyard gardening (something I’m doing a lot more of these days) and ran into my neighbor (not a rare occurrence). She is an avid gardener with a particular affinity toward succulents. She asked me if I was taking the day off. I was surprised that I had not yet told her about my departure from my job and all the wackiness that surrounded it. I brought her up to date and she asked me how I was feeling about my new lifestyle. I told her that I loved it. She was right there with me in understanding how much I loved it. She immediately said, “Yeah, you feel life more.” I speechlessly nodded. There is no better way to explain it. I imagine it’s how retirement feels…but I’m 30 years early.
This feeling has got to be different from retirement, though, because sometimes I don’t feel entitled to this break — and that makes it all the more enjoyable. It’s like I’ve been skipping school for 2 months. My dad helps keep this feeling alive simply with the tone of his voice. He knows I’ll be fine, but he’s my dad. But many times I do feel entitled to this break, however, and know that this lifestyle could actually be my reality. I’m not talking about never working again, but working for myself. I’ve scratched the surface by getting a few new clients but I still feel “unemployed” since I work so little and “feel life“ so darn much!
Being out of work and having lots and lots of time, desires/life-dreams seem to come up more frequently than they did when I was working FT (full-time). For instance, I’ve wanted to sing and pick up an instrument lately. I’ve had this desire many times before, but when I worked FT it bugged me about once a month. Now it’s once every 2 or 3 days. I guess it makes sense. I have more space and time to even consider doing things that I like to do. But I’m wondering how these desires initially got so far away from me in the first place. The answer is probably obvious, but I still think it’s important to consider.
Things are easier to see after you’ve sort of “broken-up” with your job. You realize why you left, you know why you’re better off now, you know what’s good and what’s bad. All this “sight” comes to the surface…all this visual acuity…inner-visual acuity. It’s what happens when you go on vacation…but I’m on a long one…with no warm beach or fresh fruit…and no nice hotel. Hey! This vacation sucks!
This won’t make me very popular, but I love the movie, “Just Friends.” LOVE IT. And here’s why:
I threw out my back last year and was horizontal, on the couch for about a week. I was pretty under-stimulated, so I think it was a good combo of timing and humor that made me love this movie so much. I laughed so hard at one part that I threw out my back again. This youtube movie contains some of the movies very best highlights. (My sister does an awesome version of “Forgiveness.” I should encourage her to post on youtube along with the thousands of others. She’d make them all jealous…just like Samantha James is jealous of Jamie Palomino. Watch the movie.)
Why is this post called “Unemployment II?” Because this movie is on HBO all the time…it’s on my TV right now. I know this because I’m unemployed.
Posting this movie on my website is quite a big step for me. Quite a risk. Quite an exercise in surrender. Enjoy.
Being unemployed, I’m sleeping a full night’s sleep. When I was working an 8-5 job, I would go to sleep around 11:30 or 12 and get up at 6:30 in the morning. That’s around 6 & 1/2 or 7 hours of sleep and it never felt like enough. Waves of sleepiness would hit me frequently throughout the day. I knew it was too little, but I never tried to change it.
Now, by body is getting (and telling me that it wants) almost exactly 8 hours each night. I don’t use an alarm anymore and my head pops up at the 8-hour mark every morning! It’s wild! So, if I ever have another 8-5 job again, I gotta remember this and give my body what it wants: eight long hours.
And along with all this sleep has come all this dreaming. I haven’t dreamed so consistently in years. It’s really amazing. Is it attributed to the fact that I’m getting 1-2 more hours of sleep each night? Is it that I’m more well rested…cumulatively? Is it that I am going through a lot of change and my mind is taking in a lot of new ideas and thinking many new thoughts? Is it that I spend much of my day alone and don’t get to release what’s going on in my head as often as I was able to before, when I interacted with humans? Well, that’s one of the reasons I decided to start Sweet Strain. Perhaps my dreams will start to become less vivid once I really get on a roll with this blog. I sure don’t want them to lessen, but I’ll try to stay aware of it. And then I’ll have to make a choice: dreaming every night or writing Sweet Strain?
I have been unemployed for about a month and a half now. I have to say it’s a mixed experience. I have so much space and time. So much quiet. I like that soooooo much. But then sometimes, I find myself becoming peculiar. An anonymous poster on a blog about unemployment insurance said the following that resonated with me:
“When someone leaves the work force for years they tend to become ‘peculiar’ and in some cases unemployable…”
Scratch “years” and add “weeks” and he’s explained my inner workings. I guess what I mean is that I don’t get out of my pajamas. I create peculiar meals in my sparse kitchen so that I don’t have to leave the house. I’ve never put such daring ingredients on a frozen veggie burger!
I’ve had more time to improve my garden than ever. It’s not like those weekend days that used to go by so fast. I’d be gazing longingly at the garden as I was running out the door to cram in some socializing before Monday came. I’d get one or two hours of weed picking in at best. But then, it never felt like there was enough time to tackle that overgrown garden of mine. And now I have the time. A lot of it. Do I garden? Haven’t touched it. Well, I’ve touched it once when I was talking on the phone with a long distance friend. I picked one weed and it’s funny because when I did that I couldn’t help but think, “This doesn’t mean anything, garden. This doesn’t mean I’m going to come out here and spend quality time with you. I’m very busy. I’m unemployed. I have important things to do.”
What’s that feeling about? The feeling that you should be doing something important? Or that you are so important? Maybe that’s called self-esteem and I’ve stepped outside of myself to assess the functionality of it. What’s its use? Is it an illusion that I’m “important?” What are these “jobs” that we run to every day? What are our titles worth? See? Peculiar.
