Day One of Unemployment

Today's the first day of the rest of my life. I often wonder what that really means to people when they say that. Obviously, it means starting over and today's the day of new beginnings. Tomorrow's a new day and so is the day after that. Theoretically, tomorrow is the first day of the rest of my life also - and the day after that, and the day after that and so on. All in all, that sounds really nice - being able to start a new day everyday (and starting over) but many of us don't even realize the chance we're given to begin a new day. Granted, sometimes I'm just tired of living. Tired of having to wake up, tired of having to start another day, tired of having to go through the same routine day in and day out. But at the same time, I enjoy life - I can't even bear the thought of dying young.

Anyway, in light of recent events, I'm trying hard to stay positive. I was laid off yesterday (boo-hoo). Work had considerably slowed down and I was going home early everyday. I won't lie, I really enjoyed going home early even though I needed the money. What was I to do? Even though I had known work was pretty bad, I wasn't prepared to hear that my boss was letting go of a lot of people. He had to let off the entire 2nd and 3rd shifts in all departments, 4 from my department and 15 from another department. That's bad. Obviously, I was shocked by the news and pretty upset about it. To be suddenly cut off from my main mean of income, I started to wonder how in the world am I going to pay my bills? My boss apologized over and over and said he expects to have work in about a month. If and when he gets work, he'll definitely call me to go back. I'm not holding my breath though. What if there isn't work to do?

Staying positive does have a unique effect on people when they choose to exercise that attitude. Even though I was miserable and worried all day long, I forced myself to believe that it's not the end of the world. I have another job - a part-time job. So I'm not totally broke. After speaking to tons of contacts and letting them all know I was looking for another job - I applied to 4 places yesterday. Off to a good start....

Even though I still worry, I am liking my new routine. Imagine this: T-minus 10 seconds of commute time...as opposed to an hour in the morning and another hour in the afternoon. I slept in until 9am (after getting my kid off to school, of course), took a couple steps to get some coffee, then another few steps and I was in my "office." I have enough work right now to last me a while so I think I'm safe for now. But it would be nice to have a roommate...

It's nice being back at home again. In the middle of working, I stopped and played with my son for a long while. I watched tv, did laundry and cleaned a little bit while working as well. By the time my daughter came home from school, I was done working and completed most of my chores. I got a little bit of spring cleaning done too.

A friend came over to borrow some books. I had realized that some of my most prized books weren't on any of my bookshelves so I decided to take a look around. I found a box packed full of books that I had read when I was a young girl - from about 3rd grade through middle school. That box held my favorite books. As I was sorting through these books to refresh my memory of what I had, I felt a tug at my heart as I reminisced over the memories of these books. Some of these books still had that fresh book smell and others smelled musty and worn. I love these smells. Right then, I decided I would like to read them all again. As I was looking through my books, my daughter approached me and took an interest in the books. I had an idea and asked her to choose one. Since these books were just a little bit too advanced for her, I told her we'd read these books together.

So I sat down with her and started reading the first book she chose - Sideway Stories from Wayside School. As I was reading with her, I was reminded of yet another positive aspect. While my kids can drive me insane on many days, I get to relieve my childhood through them. How awesome is that?