by Jenny Gibbons

Created on: May 22, 2009

While unemployed, I often feel as if I'm standing on the brink between paradise and abysmal doom. I am not here to explain how to best find a job while unemployed: most likely we've all read a hundred different essays and tried a thousand different ways to do this. I'm here to describe the emotional, but very real, torment one faces while unemployed. My personal experience has been a daily struggle to appreciate what I have and not get consumed by what I don't. On the one hand, I get to stay home almost all day every day. My friends with full time jobs are jealous of me. I have the additional fortune of being a writer by nature, so I spend a lot of my free time writing. I also read, cuddle with my pets, walk in the park across the street, play video games, or watch TV. During all this free time, my mind occasionally swims with dreams and fantasies. I imagine that my one of my novels will become the next bestseller, or that one of my scripts will become the next box office hit. Hell, when I look at the current winning competition, my chances seem pretty good. It's seems like it's only a matter of time, so why not keep relaxing and dream on? Then I look down at the abyss and the emptiness makes me dizzy. Sure, I may have talent. But I don't have connections, or agents, or strings to pull when I want something done. I just have what most of the American population also has: myself and my computer. Forget being a starving writer. The dark truth is I can't even get a steady job, anywhere. Every once and awhile I put together resumes and cover letters and send them off into the ether. I have a college degree. I have valuable experience. None of it seems to matter anymore. I am simply another name on a piece of paper, screaming for a job. If I'm not special enough to answer someone's phone calls, why should I be special enough to have my book published? Sometimes I have good days, sometimes I have bad days. But most days are a constant battle. I turn away from the abyss by losing myself in trivial pasttimes, blessing the fact I don't have to punch into a job and answer to a boss. Then I sit down to write and don't find anything inside of me to put on the page. And why should I? My primary challenge each day is to keep my kitten from jumping on the bookshelves. At the end of the day I have no accomplishments to claim for myself. There is only so much inspiration I can find within the walls of my apartment complex. Maybe, despite the lack of a muse, I

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