I realize that many people would love not to be working and to have hours and hours of free time, but this doesn't bode well for me. It's also true that I'm blessed to have a husband that has more than enough work and that we can live off his job. Really, I'm blessed in almost every way possible.
Sure, free time is a blessing...but indefinite free time? That freaks me out because instead of being productive, I spend most of my time beating myself out of laziness. People who don't want to work must picture swaying in hammocks with smoothies and happy thoughts running amok. Granted, I could hang up a hammock on our balcony and blend myself a smoothie, but then all I would do is think, "Wish someone was here to enjoy this, too. Meh, this is boring, I'll just fall asleep." And if I can't fall asleep because I just slept another 9-hour night, I'd mull over the fact that I'm "doing anything."
Maybe this is good for me, not working for awhile. I've always had either school or work to connect me to whatever I deem "productive." So why not be jobless for awhile? There IS stuff to do, if I just do it instead of think about doing it. "I should write...I should go outside and run this errand...I should take out the recycling." Not of it's hard, but when I have a whole day to fill it becomes a battle to be productive because my head just says, "Yeah, you could go to the 8 a.m. yoga class, but why not wait for the 10 a.m.? Or, better yet, why not the noon one? It's not like you have to be out early."
All this negative self-talk aside, I do give myself props for making it to yoga at all. It's not the most fun thing ever, being that they heat the room up to 97 degrees and I watch my sweat literally fall onto the mat. All that sweating and awkward poses and chatter about "breathing into your core" makes the cool-down all the sweeter, with a cold scented washcloth over my face and the lights dimmed. Today I had the hippiest thought ever cross my mind as I was lying on my side, face turned into the mat, and thanked the earth for "housing me." No worries - I'm not going to start praying to Mother Earth or wear ankle-length skirts made out of sun-dried leaves, but it was a fun thought just for how spacey it was.
Yoga must be a wonderful break for people who are super busy and just need quiet time to make inhuman postures. For those of us, though, surrounded by silence and open time, it's ironically a chance to get some movement and society going in our days. Wandering around Trader Joe's is another good time-waster. I seriously love that place, although Costco is surprisingly stocked with lots of "no preservative" options. That, and if you go at the right time of the day, you can get a decent meal at Costco for all their samples...just yesterday, I got half a Cliff bar, three taste cups of Sambazon smoothie mixes, part of a waffle (RANDOM), a piece of sausage, and a bunch of lime-something chips.
The hardest part of being unemployed and far from the home I know is just not knowing the answer to, "What is my point?" I know I'm not worthless, but I can't exactly say what my worth is. When I first went to Ireland for a semester, I was a sophomore in college and it was the first time I ever realized, "I don't have to be who I've always been...here, I not defined by anything from my past." For several years up to that semester, I hung pictures and posters EVERYwhere in my room because that was partly my way of identifying myself. I still hung up a lot in Ireland, but it seemed like a mere formality then.
It feels somewhat similar here. Is it really important that I hold onto all I was and had back home or can I just let that go and do whatever is fitting in this setting? Improv is really helpful in this area (thanks to all the other members that have made it easy to jump in and contribute whatever fragments of ideas I have for a scene). Last night was my second improv class and it helps remind me of how much better I can be at letting go of preconceived notions of what I want something to be. We played this game where you tell a story with another person, one word at a time, going back and forth until it's done. So when I first said "Eeyore" to start a story called "The Saddest Day," I pictured a story about Eeyore's decision to stop being sad and travel the world instead. Then, in true improv fashion, the story decided it wanted to be about dead rainbows and Piglet crying.
In case I'm not analytic enough here, this whole improv process is huge for real life. How many times do we try to force a situation into the tight box of our imagination? How great would it be if we accepted what we have and instead of trying to change it, we simply contribute to it? For example, instead of looking at my unemployment and sweeping myself away with a flurry of panic and job applications, I accept that I probably won't teach this semester and find other ways to be productive. So, I accept that I'm not working and continue following random pursuits like improv, or yoga, or wandering Trader Joe's, or writing, or reading, or looking up small groups.
While it will still take time to feel connected in this city, I think we've already done a lot of work towards meeting people and getting involved. I expect too much too soon and often feel melancholy when I think how we don't have friends here that we can just call up and be like, "Hey, we're getting frozen yogurt. Come with us" or, "We're doing a marathon of X-Files. Get your butt over here" or, "Girls night! Bring a pillow." And what do I expect after being here less than two weeks? That we'll have swarms of people banging on our door to hang out? That would just be weird and terrifying.
So, instead of trying to force my life, just accept what you have and improvise.
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