I love unemployment because…

This is my weekend.

I complain a lot about being unemployed and for good reason – it effing sucks. But in the 3.5-ish months since I’ve officially been out of a job, I’ve noticed there are some great positives about not having a full time job commitment because, I mean, who likes commitment anyways? Ew.

I Literally Can’t Afford To Be Fat
The other week, I had three different people invite me to get drinks with them, but because I’m unemployed and therefore have no money, I had to turn them down. While that does suck majorly, the positive was that I didn’t spend the evening filling my belly with sweet, sweet yet unnecessary carbs from beer and Easy Tiger’s beer cheese.  And my waist thanks me.

Weekends Just Went To 11
I work in two different offices Monday-Friday, and while neither of them majorly sucks (one more than the other), it’s still an office job. So from Friday afternoon when I get off work until Sunday night whenever I go to sleep (or Monday night this week, wassup Labor Day weekend?!), the only thing I’m thinking is, “What is the most enjoyable thing I could be doing right now?” Unsurprisingly, this has led to some bad ass weekends.

Cooking
I’m going to be honest here, I’m a pretty bad ass chef. So now that I’m unemployed and have so much more time on my hands, I have the opportunity to really expand this talent. And because I have no money to buy a lot of groceries, I’m learning how to be creative with whatever food I can scrounge up in the fridge. Like the other day, we had practically no food in the house except an avocado and one egg. So I put them together with some flour and made fried avocado slices. And then I ate them and had a foodgasm. Suck it Trudy’s.

Standards
Because I’m only an intern at both jobs, my standards are much different than a regular employee. Unlike a regular employee, when 6 pm hits, I’m outta there. There’s no such thing as sticking around to get a little more work in or overtime. In fact, my paid internship is like, and I’m paraphrasing here, “Get the eff out,” because they don’t want to have to pay me more. And when I’m going to be out of the office for something like the Great American Beer Festival in October, it’s NBD. I’m just like, “Hey I’m not going to be here this day,” and my boss is like “Cool, have a beer for me,” and I’m like, “Will do.” That may not be exactly how that conversation went, but that’s what I like to think she was thinking.

College Nostalgia
Last summer and all through my last year of college, I had this mind set that I had to have the time of my life because when I graduated and “became an adult” and got a “real job,” I couldn’t pull the bullshit that I did in college. Well, I didn’t automatically turn into a real adult and I definitely don’t have a real job, so let the bullshit commence.

Would I give up everyone of these things for the security of a good job with consistent pay and benefits? Uh, duh. But that’s not what life’s handed me yet, so I’m staying positive about what I have. You know what they say, when life hands you lemons, grab a Lone Star and make a shandy.

The upside of rock bottom

“When we hit our lowest point, we are open to the greatest change.” – Avatar Aang

I hate when you’re at a low point in your life and people say, “You can only go up from here.” I’m the kind of person who on the outside is saying, “Yeah, thanks for that pick me up,” but on the inside is thinking, “Oh, it could get worse.” I could die. That would be worse. I could get cancer. Martians could hijack Curiosity and come to Earth and kill us all. Someone could steal my identity – although as a broke, unemployed college graduate, that wouldn’t be very beneficial to anyone.

I hit a pretty low point at the end of June. I had been out of school for about a month and a half, I had applied to countless jobs with very few responses and absolutely no yeses, and although I had finally secured a summer internship, it was unpaid with a pretty far commute. To top it off, on the first day they told me the internship could not turn into a full time job. The worst thing about being unemployed isn’t the fact that you have no income and soon your bank account will read $0; the worst thing is the mental discouragement that comes with constantly being turned down because you’re too young or don’t have 5 to 10 years of experience.

Then while all of this was going on, my boyfriend broke up with me. That was kind of it for me. I stopped my job hunt. I abandoned my dream to become a public relations professional. I was even considering moving back in with my parents – yeah, it was that bad. I felt like my whole life was caving in on me, so I just collapsed with it.

Then after five days of  this pity party for one, I woke up and realized how much of a drama queen, mopey little bitch I was being. I realized I couldn’t let one person redefine my life and my goals, and I reminded myself that I didn’t go to college for four years so I could go back to being a cashier at a hardware store. So I got out of bed, showered for the first time in almost a week, started running every morning again, and spent all my newly found free time (thanks to a lack of guy in my life) rededicating myself to my job search.

And you know what? Things didn’t get worse. They got better. Last week I started a new PAID internship, which I’m absolutely loving. AND in one day, two different companies offered me fall internships to replace my summer internship, which is ending this month. AND a completely different company said they’d like to set up an interview with me. AND over the weekend, my brother’s band’s producer asked me if I’d like to work with him and his production company later in the year.

While it hasn’t been any fun, unemployment has taught me a lot of things, but this may be the most important lesson. Like Aang said, when we hit our lowest point, we are open to the greatest change (Side note: if you don’t know who this Aang is, I suggest looking into Avatar: The Last Airbender and then The Legend of Korra. Trust me, it’s worth it). Hitting our rock bottom can show us what truly matters to us and how hard we’re willing to work for it. And while I wouldn’t say I completely hit rock bottom, I think hitting that low point gave me perspective and was the best thing that could have happened to me. Well, ya know, besides getting a job.