Did I miss anything?
I’m technically starting over from scratch. After a year of emotionally swiping my credit cards to cope with the death of my mom and grandma, I got laid off. In hindsight, it was the perfect storm for creating a new life for myself. The Tower card incarnate. The end of a Saturn return from hell.
While I’m still in the midst of figuring out what I’m going to do, I decided maybe more humiliation might be a good route – that I should share every thought I have. I have spent every day of my unemployment in a house not recovered from the loss of my mom, with my own thoughts, spiraling about all the things I could be doing to get fit, get a good job, change my career, plan the next year of meals, how to have a bajillion (bagillion?) side hustles. I’m exhausted and a bit scared.
My Own Personal Recession
If this is how my parents felt in 2008, wow. Asking someone for help with my credit card debt? Never felt worse. Cried in my sister’s arms, which I didn’t even do when people were dying. I think this was the final death that broke me. The death of a life where I could doordash Chipotle, one where I could buy a trinket to make me forget the last 2 years for few hours, a life with somewhat of a safety net. Now it’s just me, my debit card, and unemployment check against the world.
Every morning I wake up and doom scroll TikTok on how to can and store food for 30 years to save us from the second Great Depression. And I mean scrolling for hours (since I can’t get a fucking job). TikTok isn’t the only place I doom scroll. Have you seen LinkedIn lately?
Every time I open the app, there is a more qualified marketer who has been laid off for 13 months who can’t land a job to save their life. 13 months? I’m 3 months in, almost out of my savings, and I haven’t even had a phone call or a calendar invite. 13 MONTHS?!
Should I sell feet pics? Should I go back to school? Should I get a recruiter? Should I start my own social media consulting business? Should I start dating to find someone to suffer all this with? Idk.
What I did do… was start a blog.
Are you dating?
Unfortunately. Unfortunately I had so much time on my hands I made online dating profiles and I am talking to strangers about the same three things every fucking day. How was my day? Shut up! I am unemployed!!!
Maybe it wasn’t the best move on my part, but I was curious. My findings? Comprehension is as low as the studies say. Incel behavior is on the rise. Insecure men on the internet will outright say they want an ambitious, spontaneous woman with exceptional hygiene. Hygiene? Are you kidding? How misogynistic do you have to be to publicly admit you think women are “dirty” and you’re looking for one perceived as “clean”?
And I will absolutely start with Blake who highly values ambition in women. Do you… not want to provide? Do you want to go 50/50? Do you want someone to provide FOR you? This is not to say women should not be ambitious. Women should have their own ambitions to have the life they want and deserve. Should they share their rewards of working tirelessly to accomplish their goals with a man? No. And to expect it? Fuck off.
SPONTANEOUS? Fuck off entirely. It’s giving – I’m just a baby who doesn’t have access to a calendar, who wants help paying for dinner by a virgin who wants to have sex with me and only me. Gross. Gross! Grow up.
And by the way, I am not some trad wife gender role conformist. I think I may have just swung too far on the decentering men to misandry spectrum. Men expecting anything from me is disgusting and that’s probably a personal problem.
As for my father…
We’re all lucky to have been home and together for what happened and how we’re moving through it now. Huge s/o to my parents for never kicking my sister and me out just because we’re “adults”. It’s also nice that I don’t have to cook dinner all the time.
P.S.
This blog was brought to you by me rewatching the Real Housewives of New York from the beginning and everyone talking about the economy and bloggers. Thanks Bravo and Peacock!
Maddy J Posts 