Everybody out of a job -- and according to my economics guru, Calculated Risk, that's more than 20 million of us in the U.S. -- rides an emotional rollercoaster.
It's awful. Remember the first time you asked someone out when you were a teen? Remember how nervous you were, how you dreaded rejection? Maybe you were the shizz and that didn't happen, but if you're jobless, you've felt the sting of disapproval at some point.
When the AMJE folded, no hard feelings. My layoff in May was about as painless as these things get: I came in the day after getting the news and cleared out my desk, accepted condolences and talked with the people who would be assuming my responsibilities. I gave them a detailed file of info they would need to know. They gave me recommendation letters and an offer to vouch for me.
But it was still rejection: the team was moving on. Without me.
So you have bad days in this. You have self-doubts. This is balanced sometimes by remembering what you did well. Since Alvin, Trent and Kai are no longer around, I know I'm the best person in a hundred square miles at what I did. But I still don't have a job.
Once again I have buried the lead, however. Today started off slow. I had a weird, unpleasant dream. So I woke up off. Fortunately my BFFs (pictured) helped me get a little better.
Moose and Piper make it difficult to stay in a bad mood. Piper especially likes me. She's got a Godzilla tail; when you give her attention it wags so hard that it thumps. Her whole backside sways; she looks like one of those big-city buses that has the bendy-straw middle part. I've said it before: you can't fake a waggy tail.
They follow you around like a shadow. Piper will jump up on the couch and just plop her head down on you. It's nice.
Home needs to be a haven, especially when you feel like the world is being kind of mean to you. I'm more lucky than I let on.
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