Every day is like Monday
I want to write about what it feels like to be unemployed, but I know that might be boring. I wrote too much, probably, about being about to be unemployed, and then there I am, unemployed, and it's a right old mess, and now I'm banging on about that all the time as well, rather than writing about all the stuff I should be writing about. I know all of this.
There was a part of me that thought "I'll have so much more to write about, and so much more time to write it in, now there isn't any work to drag me down," but that part of me was very wrong. There's something about writing when you have other things to do that means you have to work harder at it, or have less time to self-edit, which can be quite productive; sometimes it's better to have a deadline rather than an eternity, as it helps sharpen what you have to say. As it turns out, I'm writing less than I have done for ages. I am not so sure that is a good thing or a bad thing, but it's a thing. It is just a way of being, the same as writing too much was, when I did that. I look back at the multiple blog entries during a day, all the time trying to hold down a job, and I think, who on earth was that? Was that me? Was I really able to do that? Why did I do that? Why didn't I just relax? But I didn't. There was something driving me along, a sense of impetus, a sense of momentum. It's a feeling which has, I am afraid, started to fade a little. Not that it's gone forever, of course, at least I don't think it has - but it doesn't burn as brightly, right now, as it might have done, some time ago.
The days blur into one another; it becomes just a succession of days and nights, with the same contents shuffled around a little, the same tedious habits and routines put into a different order, the same you doing them, and the same feelings weighing you down. You want to look out of the window, but you don't look out of the window; you just close the curtains, and sit in the gloom, the semi-darkness, and stare at a screen. I am aware that this is not a good thing to be doing, but I do it just the same. A sense of frustration returns, a feeling that reminds me of being about 16 or 17, that restless feeling again, that desire to be anywhere, to do anything, if it's something, but the feeling that it is all impossible, that there's no way of achieving anything.
Every day is like Monday. There are no weekends. There is just a stream of days disappearing off into the distance, and a stream of unproductive days behind you. That's all there is, and it feels like that's all there is going to be. Of course, you tell yourself that this won't last, that there will be a way of getting out of all this; you know that it won't be forever, and it's going to be fine, and you'll look back on all this and reflect on it with humour and good grace. But then when you're in there, it's hard to imagine not being in there any more. It's hard to imagine everything being all right again, even if you're pretty sure that's how it's going to be. Every day is like Monday, and there are no weekends. It's just day after day that feels very much the same as the last one did. It's just day after day of ordinariness, of sameness, of being the same person in the same place, doing the same things.
And you think to yourself: well, what am I waiting for? I can change this. I can affect the world around me, and I needn't just sit around being a victim. Surely there must be some kind of way of barging through all this, of taking a battering ram to it all, of smashing down the walls and escaping. You think that, at first, but that possibility seems to fade and recede as the days pass. You think it still might be possible, theoretically, but there's no way of knowing what you're breaking down or what you'll do if you do succeed in doing it. And so you just stay in the same place, doing the same things, being the same person, with the same life, in a slightly gloomy, darkening room.
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Hello. I'm a Bristol-based writer and soon-to-be-redundant journalist. You can read more about me and the Enemies site here, or follow me on Twitter. Email me if you like - antonvowl at live dot co dot uk
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July 26th, 2011 - 22:57
Nah, it’s the same whether you work or not. Sounds just like working life, except that you don’t get any holiday leave at all.
July 27th, 2011 - 02:02
I’ve been doing and thinking this for years.
Staring at a bookmarks toolbar of different colours. Go through the usual ones. Look back again. There’s something there, I’m sure of it. Click. Click again. Meals separate periods of not doing anything. Must gulp this down and rush back to staring into cyber-nothingness. Cyber-mush.
July 27th, 2011 - 08:31
I was unemployed for four months a few years back and went through exactly what you describe, the slowly darkening room. Then the phase ended and life picked up a kind of rhythm again, and before too long the period of unemployment became like a memory that belonged to someone else. Now when I look back on it I can barely believe it lasted four months – it feels like it was a year, or maybe a week, but not four months.
Moving from the listless stasis of unemployment to the “normal” pace of life – I don’t even remember how it happened, it was a transition that came upon me without warning. It certainly didn’t feel like the result of anything I’d been doing. I’d been doing absolutely nothing the whole time.
July 27th, 2011 - 13:12
It’s quite easy to feel no purpose when purpose was provided for you in the form of employment.
Your new purpose is to find a new way to survive and keep eating. If you had children (I have no idea, but I doubt it) then your purpose would be more clearly defined.
For now, you have to look after yourself. You owe it to yourself to look after your mind, health and finances so that you can offer others the complete ‘you’.
My £0.02.
July 30th, 2011 - 21:00
I’m so sorry you’re going through this; you don’t deserve it. The only thing I’m sure of is that it will pass. It sound as if it’s getting you down quite badly, possibly to the point of actual depression. But things WILL change, whether it’s because you get another job or simply because you rediscover your interest in stuff.
I was just reading Geoff Dyer’s ‘Out Of Sheer Rage’ today and he describes almost the same experience as you, and (in so many words) says what I believe about these states of mind; the more you can just accept that this is how you are at the moment and not try to fight it or force yourself to do anything, the quicker you will come out the other side.
In the interests of being of slightly more practical use, however, I will donate to your blog when I get home tomorrow.
All the very best. xx
August 18th, 2011 - 16:33
I’m looking at ATOS at the moment and I’ve already told my doctor not to fill in any forms that they send. I’ve written to them to say I object to them holding my data. They’ve not replied yet, but it’s a matter of time, and when this falling-out comes to a head, there’ll be JSA and a fortnightly pilgrimage to the local Jobcentre and the gorillas guarding the door. I’ve been in that situation before far too often and it’s not nice.
Not every day is Monday, though, because I make sure it isn’t. Living next to a main road which quietens at the weekend helps. I set my netbook to wake me up with a different set of tunes at 05:00 every morning, but I needn’t bother, because I wake at 04:59 and pile out of bed to get on with as much as I can before the pain says “no more”. I put the tunes on in the living room office instead. I do it to keep in synch with the rest of the world.
I document everything I do as I do it during the morning which means everything gets done and I don’t have time to daydream. I set myself tasks to do and as I’m an IT consultant, I have a whole load of programming I can do to keep my hand in. My intranet is in a perpetual state of fettling.
All this discipline is demanding, ’tis true, but I keep telling myself “sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof” and worry about tomorrow when it turns up at 04:59 the following day after a good night’s sleep.
I’ve had depression in the past and I know how it saps the will to do anything. I have friends who swear by Dr Cantopher’s book Depressive Illness – Curse of the Strong and it’s £4.77 at amazon at the moment.
On the subject of books, I’ve ordered your Musings of a Monkey this afternoon. I can’t do much more to cheer you up at the moment, but I hope that helps.