my unemployed life

a snapshot

Now that I am unemployed, time stretches and yawns. The days and weeks used to trip over each other in breathless cycles as I ran after work tasks, chores, staying fit, and maintaining friendships. Post-employment, the days are longer and the weeks amble at a pace that I have not experienced since childhood. It feels like I am ten years old.

It has been one week of freedom, and I have been spending my wealth of time writing fiction in coffee shops, reading, and napping. The days are warm and sunny, ideal for a walk to the Asian grocery store or kicking a soccer ball around, and when it rains I sit inside reading Native Speaker by Chang-Rae Lee. I go to Zumba, the gym, and thrift stores. I amuse myself on the piano and I cook meals for friends. We hold a late-morning tea time with cucumber sandwiches, and we speak very proper and try to imitate Virginia Woolf’s writing style. We wake up at 3:30AM to go on a sunrise hike, and afterwards we scarf down crepes stuffed with berries and topped with cream. All this activity and delight (and more that I didn’t mention) in a single week.

I could’ve gazed for hours

I should probably stop fooling around and start looking for a job, but I don’t want to. It has only been seven days of freedom, and I want to live in this hedonistic version of reality a little longer. My writing flows like clear water from a faucet. My room resembles the aftermath of a natural disaster and I am content with it (strangely pleased, even). I have tapped into some secret extroversion that makes me want to be with people every day, and I have been doing a lot less existential rumination. I am writing a lot, I have friends, and I am happy, for now.

Soon, this period will end. I will have to return to being responsible and get a job, so I can pay rent and contribute something to society. But I won’t think too much about it just yet, and instead I will make another video for my YouTube channel and finish my next Substack think piece. There is a time for mending and a time for laughter, and I will bask in this joyous respite until the time for perspiration and sobriety is upon my shoulders once again.