There comes a time when some of us hit the wall. We go through a bad spell...we break down, a shift takes place and we go from being what we think of as ourselves and turn uncomfortably into someone else. We may be the same on the outside, but inside, we are this other person we really can't stand.
There are any number of reasons why this could be happening and we can examine all of them at our leisure if we so desire but for Billie McInery, sudden unemployment was the catalyst. In this, she was not alone. We are, as the media says, in a recession. Quite severe, they say, though not as fatal as a depression such as the one in 1929.
Billie began this recession thinking it only a small glitch and she would glide through it. She would most certainly find another job without too much trouble. She had, after all, marketable skills, an impressive degree and a sharp professional appearance.
Despite Billie's upbeat attitude, she realized that to get through this recession she would need to watch her spending; an innocent enough phrase, "watch your spending," that turned into a sort of death watch; death of life as she knew it. As the weeks went by and a job did not turn up, every cent had to be accounted for. Gone were the days of spontaneous spending with nary a thought. It started with no more innocent cups of coffee in a cafe and cutting down on the cable bill. Then dry cleaning had to go, taxis, forget about it, new clothes, a thing of the past, a drink in a bar, I don't think so, lunch in her favorite restaurant, better not. Magazine and newspaper subscriptions lie fallow, cell phone use limited but still a necessity. She was reduced to fretting about extra time in the dryer in the laundromat which she now had to use.
While in the laundromat, a derelict asked her for money and she broke down and cried while adding the fabric softener. In better days she might have given him a dollar or some change but now he ended up asking if he could help her. He offered to carry home her laundry but this she politely declined - he then witnessed the container of detergent bounced onto the sidewalk while she struggled to get out of the door. He looked at her with pity and she knew she had traversed another world.
After five months, her funds got so low she not only had to take the bus everywhere, but worried if she could even afford that. Her previous business attire, which served her so well for the past year was looking ever so slightly shabby and dated and she pondered whether a new suit or a dress for job interviews should be charged on her credit card but couldn't decide if this was a necessity or a gamble. She was in an endless cycle of worry that she knew from reading self-help books was not productive but had to let her therapist go as well as the yoga class.
What Billie dreaded most were the calls from her mother. Always slightly overwrought in the best of times, she now had a new excuse for it; her daughter being unemployment in an expensive city with only a pittance in unemployment compensation, a lease on an apartment and a boyfriend who left town. She called daily to see if Billie wanted to come home, something Billie was definitely not ready to do. Moving from home had been the happiest day of her life and whenever she felt a bit battered by life, she would relive the exhilaration she experienced the day she rented a U-Haul van and moved her things to the college dorm with the help of her brother. As the rental pulled away, she felt nothing but relief and vowed never to live with her mother again. She would do well at school and later in her chosen career to make sure she kept this vow. It wasn't that she hated her mother, she just did not admire her and could no longer tolerate her theatrics. They had never been close and when she remarried when Billie was in high school, a man Billie secretly called the Toad, it was the official end of mother/daughter closeness. She knew she might be cold, her mother said so, but so be it. Billie had her dream; to wheel and deal in the financial sector and buy a beautiful apartment with a terrace and a fireplace. She was only three years into her career when the recession put her dreams in a no-man's land of uncertainty.
She was not the only one in this dilemma; many were unemployed due to a human glut of college-educated paper pushers although very little paper is used in most professions today. We are now word or number processors but there is a convulsive force decreeing that all the words and numbers have been over processed and now we need less processors, less words, less numbers--in fact, less of everything. What are all the former processors, some with families and pets supposed to do? Even Billie's cat was now in dire need.
Billie visited a support group for the newly unemployed the day after the incident in the laundromat. There are options, said the hail and hearty career counselor. Billie was advised to: retrain, start a business, go for an advanced degree, consider relocating to a different job market, move into cheaper digs in a cheaper town and if necessary, move in with relatives. As a bonus on how to weather the days ahead, she was told to eat at home, clip coupons, avoid department stores, make her gifts, share child care and transportation, read more, watch TV less, use the public library, walk more, it's good exercise and the gym is too expensive anyway, and when all else fails talk to God. Or a higher power if the word "God" makes you nervous.
Billie recoiled into a ball and stayed in bed the rest of the day digesting all that had been said and then trying to forget all that had been said. That is not the way to live, she lamented. Being cheap is not God's way she wouldn't think, but couldn't be sure because she had been thinking so much she could no longer think straight. Her momentum had dried up as well as her cheerful outlook and she knew she was sinking and didn't even mind so much if only others were not looking down on her. She actually considered talking to God because she somehow thought she was in the wrong and she wanted to be right; as she always had been. She did talk to God after her father's death and was exasperated with her mother but she grew out of it and concentrated on planning a life that was independent of everything and everyone. Demeaning wasn't her style.
Sudden unemployment reminds us that we are disposable, not in control of our destiny and if there is a family, other things factor in; things that verge on the emotional that really shouldn't be bothering us at this crucial time. But in the end we find emotions are almost the entire picture. Where did they come from? Billie had been proud that she had established her orderly life in the city and was away from drama, trauma and the ridiculousness that had constituted her family life in the suburbs. Her mother and stepfather smoked pot regularly; drank wine all night and listened to disheartening old rock records from the '60s that made Billie want to wretch with disdain. Things weren't like this when her father was alive. He was an adult and she missed him sorely after he died when she was in junior high. She knew she would now have to be the adult but could manage her mother until the Toad came along and turned their home into a shrine of his counterculture past. There was a framed poster of Jim Morrison in the foyer where once a pleasing landscape painted by her great grandmother during a trip to France in the 1920s had hung. Billie retrieved it from the basement storage room and it now hung in her studio apartment above the un-working, ornamental fireplace. Someday, she thought, it would hang above a real fireplace.
Billie was past the stage of spending in a rebellious spirit. She bought those new shoes, had that really pricey lunch to cheer herself up and brought a really good bottle of wine to a family gathering where no one knew or cared how much better it was than what they usually drank. Afterward she felt guilty or sad over her solitary weaknesses and angry because the shoes weren't really comfortable and she hadn't saved the receipt and now would have to go back to the store in a pleading position which is a huge drain on the spirit. The salesman has seen an increased influx of returns and knew what she was about, making Billie feel even smaller.
Without working, shopping, bars, cafes or movies, time begins to hang heavy. If you're lucky you find a newspaper on the bus and can sit in the square and read for a half hour. Maybe you will read something pertinent to your situation. You could look for a job but everyone says there's nothing out there and you sort of want to believe them but know in your soul that there is something for you personally because you are special. You then feel guilty because you haven't found it and then erratically think I have got to start buying lottery tickets and then realize they cost money too. You laugh at yourself because you are so desperate and you wonder who else knows it and how you can either repair or hide your beleaguered self-image. Your thinking is getting more woeful with each day and you'd like to have a drink by four in the afternoon but are watching those pennies and the equilibrium. One day Billie broke down and bought something cheap that gave her a headache and wasn't worth it after all. She decided not to succumb to such weakness in the future and hoped she could keep this resolution. Even cruising Bloomingdale's was better as long as she didn't buy anything.
After a small fortune spent from her father's legacy for a good university education, she is in the same boat with waiters, store clerks, fitness instructors and personal shoppers. Her brother with half her brains went to refrigeration school and just bought a cabin on a lake for summer use, paid off his house and is not only employed with overtime, but has side work that he can't keep up with. He threatens, with a hearty laugh, to take time off someday to have some fun. His wife stays at home and takes flower arranging classes, gardens and shops. She sort of pities Billie but tries not to say anything offensive. Bitter chagrin, that one.
Billie has not hit the proverbial wall yet though her mood is gloomy and her rent is past due. She does not recognize herself these days and avoids old friends. She feels very sorry for those with children and mortgages going through this. The guy she was seeing who seemed to have so much promise as a trader had to move back home and is now working as a manager of his uncle's video store that is not doing so well because of Netflix and other online options and will soon close. He is now history but she misses companionship and intimacy. She did consider buying a lottery ticket yesterday but chided herself and gave up the idea as fantastical and not her thing at all. She had a fleeting thought she might become flaky like her mother and made an appointment at still another employment agency as soon as the thought crossed her mind. When she ran into a friend on the street who was wearing the dress Billie had hoped to buy when it went on sale, she wanted to run the other way but decided to take it in stride.
"Coffee? I'd love to but I'm afraid I've got to run. Maybe another time. No I haven't found a job yet so if you hear of anything...no, I'm fine. Busy, you know. Hey, congratulations on your promotion. No, we broke up. He moved back to Ohio. Yeah, I'll call you soon. No, I'm fine really..."
No comments:
Post a Comment