Making the Most of Unemployment

The day I got laid off my work friends came over bearing good wishes and tequila and made me pizza. Debauchery seemed a little more meaningful that first free agent weekend.

The usual Friday night anxiety that revolves around a devil voice in the back of your head yelling, "You have T-minus 42 hours of freedom left, binge, purge, repeat!" was absent, the void filled by my new, chilled-out conscience saying, "Smell the roses, jerk. Every day is a gift, and you know what, you don't have to stop doing whatever it is that makes this whole existence thing worthwhile."

I spent my first day of unemployment rediscovering my love for the things that made me go to college: reading and writing.

I whiled away the second day of unemployment lighting incense and consuming entire seasons of TV on DVD and takeout empanadas.

My third was spent filling out applications for anything that tickled my impulse and trolling Craigslist for bizarre contract pay.

On my fourth I managed to wrangle an interview at the most high-traffic and raucous dueling piano bar in the city, thanks to an essay I had submitted earlier in the week about what a rock star server I am.

My roommates weren't home when I set out, so I didn't have any validation of how awesome I looked to fuel me through the interview. I just chatted honestly with the manager about my excitement to get back into an industry that would let me express myself, socialize a little, talk about my passion for spicy Bloody Marys, and make recommendations about something I actually care about. It was nice not to have to make up a story about my single personal shortcoming being that I am too damn detail-oriented.

The next morning I put on a suit and headed to the non-profit company downtown where two of my college friends work. They had me come in to talk about seasonal part-time help. That same day I was contacted by the editor of a publishing company asking me to run a hyperlocal website about my neighborhood.

Making the Most of Unemployment

I slept in until the sun was already risen and eventually remembered what it felt like to be up and doing things, but not in that manic way you operate when you've exhausted all reserves short of triple espresso shots. I caught up on back issues of my favorite magazines and got lunch with grad school friends on days they had off class.

I went to Spanish club at a bar down the street, learned new nouns and befriended a few non-nine-to-fivers. I spoke with people from PR firms, publishing houses and libraries with whom friends and family had put me in touch.

I took the dogs out for hours on gorgeous days. I traveled thousands of miles to visit my oldest friend who moved to California last year. I cooked weird pasta dishes and put kahlua in my Ovaltine. I started my days by asking myself what I wanted to get done and what I wanted to experience.

Seeing a Layoff in a New Light

Unemployment is kind of like your first metaphysics book. It just forces you to look at things completely differently. There may be some elusive, profound destination, but there are a zillion different ways of getting there.

Thousands have stumbled across an abrupt fork in their paths in the past few months, and for the sake of all of us enduring this economic tsunami, I really hope Robert Frost was onto something. We may be hovering apprehensively in some new, unexpected place, but I think that collectively, we're about to take a meaningful trip through some uncharted territory.

Getting laid off was like being handed a prism. When I held things up in the right light, myriad glorious reflections surrounded me everywhere I looked. This unexpected circumstance has turned out to be the opportunity I needed to find the "autodrive off' switch and actually think about where I want to go. I never thought I would spend the end of 2008 selling shots in an elf costume and blogging my days away, but I'm actually pretty excited about it.

A lot of us are on the brink of something new because of forced circumstance. Things are a little scary for a lot of people right now, and pretty interesting for most of us. If we can all just trust that we'll find the right angle of the prism, take a jag down the less traveled road and find a few stopping spots that weren't on the original itinerary, I think we're in for some glorious new adventures.