Unemployed.

Howdy, Livejournal Land. Greetings from the Land of the Unemployed. The weather here is stormy, but the future outlook is partly sunny.

Thanks for all the prayers and good thoughts. I’m feeling mostly optimistic. I know it’s sappy, but I’m a firm believer that when a door closes, a window opens. The last time a company laid me off, it was my opportunity to go back to school and finish my degree. I still have to find the window this time around, but I know it’s there, somewhere.

So yesterday, I went to work knowing it was going to be a horrible day, regardless. Even if I got to keep my job, I was going to have to watch good people go. When my supervisor stopped by my desk and whispered to me that I needed to be at the 10:00 meeting in the conference room, I knew. After that it was just going to the meeting and listening to the management speech about how the economy sucks, and the clients’ businesses are sucking, and it’s making our business suck, and they’re so very sorry, and when things pick up they’ll offer us our jobs back. Then it was signing papers. Then back to my desk, where there were moving boxes and tape waiting and I had already been locked out of my work account. Then packing, packing, packing–I accumulated a lot of personal crap at my desk over two and a half years–interrupted by tearful hugs and goodbyes and promises to stay in touch and reference letter offers. Then I came home, unloaded my three boxes of office crap from the car, and sat on the couch with Matt, where we cuddled and held hands and then looked at each other and asked, “Now what?”

After taking an hour or so out to rest and let it all sink in, I got to work. Filed for unemployment benefits (I’m eligible for half of what I was earning at my job), got in touch with my old temp agencies, updated and submitted my resumes, applied for a part-time job. Once all of that was done, I didn’t know what the heck to do. The ice storm had started by then, and the house was dark and freezing, because now saving energy is more important than ever. So we got in bed and took a nap and then just forgot about it for the rest of the evening.

My plan to start today out with a disciplined schedule was thrown off by the ice storm knocking out the power for a few hours, but once I got up and around, I made a massive To Do list. It’s so massive that it’s overwhelming, so I’m not sure that helped me any. Anyway, next on that list is to create a new budget. We’ve still got a month’s worth of pay from my job coming in, and we need to tighten things up and make that last as long as possible.

After that, I don’t know. There’s so much I need to do. So much I WANT to do. I don’t know where to start.

The only thing I do know is that, right now, the possibilities are endless. And also that I love you guys.