Ninety One Days

A couple of weeks ago I received a letter from the employment people summoning me to my 13 week interview. For the first 13 weeks I am permitted to look for jobs specifically within my field of experience. Once that is passed you are required to "review your progress" and come up with some other options in order to find a job. It's supposed to be a way of guiding you back into work yet I know that tomorrow is about punishment. You haven't managed to find a job, you've failed to do so and now you have to explain why you've failed and what you are going to do in order not to fail again.

This will involve agreeing to apply for jobs I've not done for over half a decade, jobs I've stepped away from. The things that chart your progress as an individual. I've been one of those people who looks at work as an area of my life I've always been able to control and measure my success. Without it I've discovered how little I have nothing to aim for, and nothing to drive me forward. There is too much time to sit around and think and after a while you just shut down, because it seems like the only way to survive. We all like to take pride in our work, no one ever really thinks about what happens when the work is gone and there is nothing.

I've spent a lot of time in the past 2 weeks worrying about everything but my career. There is just the one day to go before the movers arrive and there is still masses to sort out in the flat. To be honest, I really don't need this bloody distraction. I spent Sunday working on my CV to produce something which would be seen as an alternative to my training CV to apply for some customer service jobs. I think I spent about half a day working to produce something which will result in earning about half the money I earned in my last job, and about one third less money than the one before that. I will not have anywhere to live by Friday and am forced into staying with a friend (still paying rent, bills, and now storage fees) all to try and downsize enough to be able to survive and live my life - if that's what I can call it. My focus at the moment isn't about work it's about getting through this week and into next week.

I've had the support of people and some have been giving me the most tremendous support and encouragement to get through this. I'm suffering some terrific lows and some quite wonderful and unexpected highs in the process. I seem to have a bipolar life at the moment. I wouldn't say I'm bipolar but the things that are happening can only produce extreme reactions. The coach I have seen helped me look at everything and come up with some options as to what to do. Most of them were actually quite realistic but also fraught with difficulties and uncertainties.



I've not been able to predict anything in the past few weeks but I've become an increasingly honest person about where my feelings are. I still feel like I'm doing all of this on my own, and that's the hardest part. People don't get let into my life that easily and it means you end up needing twice the strength to face and deal with everything sometimes. As I sit here and write this I suddenly feel dead tired and next week seems a very long way from here.