Funemployment Tip #1: Don’t panic / Start a blog, because you have a lot of free time and your mother always says you should.

It’s been almost a month since I quit my corporate cubicle job with nothing else lined up, with no plans or prospects. The initial jubilance and holy-shit-I’m-free feeling has mellowed in the past few weeks, and some of it has given way to holy-shit-what-about-money-how-do-I-feed-myself, but there is still no question that leaving was the best decision I could have made for myself (although I was JUST starting to master the Silent Desk Panic Attack and the Stealthy Office Bathroom Cry – important life skills!).

When I got the job I was 23, I had just moved to Raleigh and signed a lease with the Boyfriend, and I needed income. Through a staffing agency I got an interview for a position I almost immediately rejected – it had the word “sales” in the title. Shudder. I decided to go to the interview for practice, because surely I would not get hired on the very first attempt. Then they hired me. So I thought, well, I’ll do this for six months, a year at most, to build some skills and salary history, and in the mean time I would lay plans to shift into a job I was actually interested in. But six months, then a year, passed and I had no plans. I felt stuck and paralyzed by indecision and unhappiness. My mind was in a constant fog, and I couldn’t remember what I was even good at, let alone what I wanted to be doing, other than not this. I sought treatment for depression, but I was too anxious to find a therapist, and the prescription I was put on was all side effects and no effects. So for a long time I just existed. Occasionally I sent off a resume, and I even got one interview, but for the most part I lacked the energy to put forth much of an effort.

In sight of my two year mark with the company, I resolved to make my exit. I had enough savings to get by for a few months, and the Boyfriend and I had a temporary roommate set to move in for the summer to pay a third of the rent. I also had permission to quit from my mother, and yes I am a 25 year old adult woman, but sometimes big life decisions are easier when Mom says it’s ok, so shut up. I gave my two weeks’ notice on June 1, and they released me June 2.  Freeeeeeeeeeeedooooooooom. (In my mind that reads like “free doom” with is not what I was going for.)

I’ve spent the past month slowly emerging from my fog. It’s taken a while, and for the first few days at least the novelty of unlimited, consequence-free access to Netflix and day-drinking didn’t help with the quest for mental clarity, but I am slowly remembering that I am a fairly interesting human being with skills and talents to offer; and despite the always present Debbie Downer in my brain stoking the anxiety fire, I know I’ll find a way to use my skills for good. Or evil. I haven’t found my calling yet.