Death and Unemployment

I get why we’re not allowed to know when we’re going to die. It’s to keep us in line. If we don’t know when the light is going to show up and pull us into the beyond, we have to at least consider our actions and the consequences of such actions. (Unless we’re under some influence or other. Then caution goes out the window. But let’s save that topic for another blog post, or St. Patrick’s Day.) The younger we are, the less we think about our mortality and when we do spare it a thought, it’s fleeting, because, as everyone knows young people are immortal.

Then middle age happens and more of life has been spent than is left. The well-known midlife crisis happens at this point. We start having regrets, changing our bad habits, being more patient, and driving Porsches. So, not knowing our expiration date is probably beneficial to the human race in general, and to luxury car makers in specific.

I can live with not knowing how long I’m going to live. It’s probably why I’ll never get a full-body scan. Sometimes I’d rather be in the dark. But not when it comes to unemployment. Losing your job and looking for one can be devastating. Even if you can afford to not work for awhile, because you don’t know when your next job will come along, you can’t enjoy the time off. Every time I’m unemployed I spend all of my time panicking and sleeping. Then when I get a job, I have to scramble and do everything that I put off during my time off when I had plenty of time to do it. I can see how this happened to me the first time I was between jobs, but now that I know I should be organizing my taxes and making pinatas, I still don’t.

I should at least organize my house. My drawers used to be a metaphor for my life. Five or six years ago, if you walked into my house, you would have been greeted with cleanliness and order, and the soothing smell of bleach and cleansers. You would have said, and probably did, “My, she certainly has it all together.” You would have remained blissfully unaware of the chaos raging in my brain unless you opened a closet or drawers. As mountains of mismatched and discarded debris tumbled toward you, or on you, you would have rethought your initial impression. That wouldn’t have happened, however, because I guarded my closets and drawers with the tenacity of a drug lord’s pit bull.

Now, if you walk into my house, you will harbor no illusions about the state of my mind. After signing my guestbook, which entails writing your name in the dust on our sideboard, you will be greeted by muddy floors, piles of papers, mounds of books that have overtaken several rooms and have been granted squatters’ rights, and frosted window panes that really aren’t frosted at all.

Another indication of my scatteredness is that, a year or so ago, I would have had this blog post all plotted out. I would have known how I would start, what would be said in the middle, and I would have tied it all together at the end. Not anymore. In fact, I’m a little bored. I think I’ll go price Porsches. I’ll write when I get work.

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