overjoyed unemployed (freedom is a word i rarely use)

no one in the history of forever has been so delighted to be laid off as i am. this morning my boss called to let me know it would be my last day—not because of anything i did, but because she can’t afford to have employees anymore, except for the ad sales person. she had to lay off her mom and husband too. i could tell she felt awful and she was probably dreading calling me; the same kind of situation happened with my predecessor, who didn’t take it very well. i found myself consoling her rather than the other way around. it is very sad that the company isn’t doing well, and i feel so bad for her and my coworkers, but to be perfectly selfish…

i’m free!

just last night i had a bit of a breakdown because i couldn’t figure out how i would ever disentangle myself from this job. my mom has written for their magazines for ten years, so i knew i’d have to be incredibly careful about how i ended things. i worked for them for nine months and had a lot of assignments with due dates far into the future, and my responsibilities were such that it would be very hard for them to find a new person to replace me, especially because there’s no longer an office building and my boss works from her house up in mccall. and on top of that, i really like the people i worked for and with, and i didn’t want to let them down.

this has not been a bad job. it’s been very stressful at times, but mostly because i made it that way. my former boss and coworkers are all wonderful people. for the last few months i’ve kind of been living someone’s dream, working from home, making my own hours, having a for realsies job in my field of study, with lots of perks like free tickets to events and movies and occasional free food at fancy restaurants...i can hardly complain, but i am burnt out. i’m so ready to give all that up it’s not even funny.

i got my first job the day after my 20th birthday; now it’s two weeks until my 23rd birthday, and i’ve been working solidly that entire time, with a few months overlap when i had two jobs. on top of working i’ve also been going to school full-time and haven’t had any real vacations. there was about a six-month period recently when i didn’t even have weekends—i had one day off a week, and that was usually filled with running errands and doing homework.

i am not the type to work like that. people seem to get the impression that i’m a responsible person and that i have my shit together, but this is not the case. around last fall i started feeling the walls closing in on me, adulthood a vile and intractable fate tightening its oppressive grip around my neck. it never mattered much what i was doing, only that i was doing things and pretending to be responsible when i’m really quite not.

as i’m writing this i just received a heartbreaking email from a coworker, the last remaining employee…he feels like it’s his fault and he’s really upset about it. but he works as hard as he can, and he can’t help the economy. poor guy, so depressing…

i’m still going to get paid to write articles for all the magazines and do freelance editing—those were my favorite parts of the job anyway. i don’t have to worry about distribution anymore! i don’t have to force myself to work when i don’t want to! i don’t have to think about work all the time and feel trapped by it! i am so, so happy.

my former boss wants me to go on unemployment since she’s been paying for the insurance this whole time and she doesn’t want it to go to waste, but i don’t know. i’m not sure if i even qualify, for one thing. i certainly don’t need the money, and i don’t feel right about contributing to the unemployment issue (and draining the system’s funds) when the economy is so shitty and there are so many other people who genuinely need the help. i’m torn. i’ll look into it further.

tomorrow is the first day of my 12 day vacation before the next semester starts. i haven’t had this much time off in about 3.5 years. oh sweet donothingness…