Finding Moments of Unexpectedness

I am laid off. I have been laid off for seven months today. I am trying to find the silver lining in this, but the silver lining in the overall big picture scheme is eluding me. I am sustaining myself by finding little moments of unexpectedness.

Yes, the overarching unexpectedness is that I thought I would be back to work by now. I thought that one of the way too many resumes I sent out would have at least garnered me a return phone call. But that has not happened. I have only received the rebuke of "While your qualifications are impressive, we have found another candidate that fits our needs."

I am find myself sighing a lot. I am unaware that I am holding my breath until it rushes out in a long forceful sigh. I am holding my breath. Waiting. Waiting for the release from this suspended animation, waiting for the other shoe to drop, waiting for a door to open. Waiting.

It is hard to live so on the edge all the time. I am tired, fatigued, drained but sleep eludes me. I am finding I am afraid of the dark. I am afraid of the unknown. I am afraid of falling into the abyss.

My failure is not something on which I want to dwell. I know deep down that I did nothing that warrants the term "Failure"-- I know that I am not a failure. I know this. And yet...

I have found myself at loose ends. I am in a perpetual state of waiting. Waiting for something to happen, waiting for something to break the monotonous routine of being laid off and having nothing really to do.

I am waiting.

I am open, though. I open to those moments of unexpectedness. I am now free to say yes if my nephew calls up one day during the week before Christmas and asks if I would like to go to Disneyland. I am home, not at work, and I have the option -- no, the privilege of saying yes. Why, yes, I would like to go to Disneyland.

If I had been working, like my sister was and therefore could not go, I would not have been able to ride Pirates of the Caribbean with my nephews and somehow gotten completely soaked. I think they planned it. I would not have been able to have lunch with them at Club 33. I would not have been able to spend part their Christmas break with them.

I would have been working. By all rights, I should have been working. But I was not. I was laid off, seven months ago.

I am now on the lookout for the moments of unexpectedness. Those spontaneous, unplanned, out of the blue moments. The moments that sneak in and allow me to say Yes.

Because I can. Because I am not working. Because I seem to have all the time in the world.

© pranaknits