As my close friends and family know, I’ve been unemployed for almost fourteen months now. It’s been a tough road.
It all started when I lost my writing job on a Nickelodeon show last August rather unexpectedly. My girlfriend and I had mad plans not a month before that for her to move down to L.A. with plans of us getting married. When the news came of my job loss, she had already quit her job and ended her apartment lease, so there was nothing we could do except say to hell with it, let’s do this. So she came down, I proposed, she moved in and we hit the road to the future.
At this point things start getting hairy. After the bliss of the wedding and first few months of marriage wore off, we came to the harsh reality of me being the only bread winner while she waited for her work visa. The money in my bank account became less and less and less… I was up for a couple of jobs, but didn’t get them. In January a job finally came through. Well, kind of. I was told I had it on Friday, then Monday got a call saying I didn’t have it. What happened over the weekend I don’t know.
I ended up getting hired by that company again a few weeks later, only to have that job ripped from under me as well. The studio exec that’d brought me in had been fired and as it goes in Hollywood, everything she was attached to went bye-bye.
So there I was. Back to nothing. No job prospects, no money coming in at all. I’ve been living in the horrible abyss of the unknown since then. Sure there’s been days of happiness when a residual check comes in. But it’s never enough to be ecstatic about. Just enough to keep us alive for another month.
My wife finally got her green card and work visa in April and hit the town hard, looking for work. She’s a marketing writer and a damn good one with a long resume. We both thought it wouldn’t take her long to find work, but now the second day of October, she too has found nothing for employment. So on we go, my bank account draining an disappearing.
The days go by fast while I try and write the next thing to give my manger to sell. But each one encompasses the same thing. Ennui. I wouldn’t normally use a word like that, but that’s the only way to describe the life of boredom that I lead. Maybe it’s because I’m a storyteller and I’d hope for a better, less linear storyline, but this whole unemployed life just sucks. Every day it’s the same thing. Wake up, have breakfast, start writing. Break for lunch, write some more. Have dinner, write some more. The only time anything exciting happens is when I get turned down for yet another job. I had one day last month where I got turned down for two gigs within’ fifteen minutes of each other. That certainly wasn’t fun. It did kinda break up the boredom.
I went into a bit of a downward spiral on that one. “It’s never gonna change. I can’t find work. What are we gonna do?” This of course all said in my head as to not upset my wife who’s been riding the wave of anxiety and depression right beside me. But as with any wave, eventually it ends at the shore and either you walk up the beach or get pulled back in to ride the wave again. I always get pulled back in.
But things changed last night. Up to this point we’ve shared the emotional burden of our situation. Each of us seemed to be up while the other was down which lead to a good support system although not the most fun of a daily existence. But we were making it through. Then I lost out on a big job yesterday. I mean, huge. Like employment for over a year on a great show that I watch regularly. But it wasn’t to be so I reacted sad, anxious, annoyed and went to the gym to clear my head. Having been through so many rejections lately, I’m getting used to it, so I bounced back quickly and was back to working on my feature script later last night.
Then I went to bed and found my wife crying. Crying for a job I lost. Which I wasn’t sure what to think of at first. “Why are you crying about my job?”, I asked. “I don’t know. I guess I just hoped it would happen.” As I held her and felt her tears falling off her face and onto my wrists, I began to get angry. Not at he of course, but at unemployment. That dick made my girl cry. That ain’t cool. You can fuck with me all you want unemployment, but not with her. I’m gonna find you, unemployment, and when I do, it’s on. I’m gonna beat you ’till you can’t make anyone cry. I’M COMING FOR YOU!
Oh, yeah, if you see unemployment, let me know where he’s at. ‘Cuz he’s going down!
