I made it back to my car. Then I cried in the parking lot. What was I going to do now? As a single parent -- recently separated from my husband -- it was all up to me. And things already weren't going very well. Without two incomes to keep me afloat, I was sinking fast. I had put my house up for sale about a month ago, and although the house had been shown several times, I did not currently have any offers on the table.
Since it was only about three in the afternoon, I did what I thought any shell-shocked person would do: I went home and took a nap. My kids would not need to be picked up from daycare for another two hours. What was I going to tell them? I really didn't know if a seven and four year old would understand the deep doggie doo doo that this latest development would mean for the three of us.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
It took about a week for my (soon to be) ex-husband and my parents to figure out that I was no longer employed. It was not the first time I had been in the land of the unemployed, and I felt ashamed that I was yet again in this position. I didn't provide them with any details when they called. I told them I didn't want to talk about it because in the grand scheme of things it really didn't matter WHY I didn't have a job any longer. I couldn't go back and reverse their decision, and didn't want to try to fight them. Why would I want to continue to work at a company where I was no longer wanted? I could never understand that about those stories I heard on the news about whistle blowers and the like, fighting to get back into a company that didn't want them.
I applied for unemployment right away, although I wasn't sure that my chances would be good in that department. It literally was a "he said/she said" situation and I truly was not up for any kind of battle with Micromanaging Dictator. So I also applied for food stamps and any other type of aid that I could think of. And I waited. For everything. In case you didn't know, Federal and state government aid moves at the speed of molasses in a blizzard in Alaska. I filled out countless forms and sat in stark, depressing holding tanks. I felt very much like Beetlejuice, doomed to hope that they might call my number before the second Tuesday of next week.
While I cooled my heels in the welfare line, I began hunting for a new place to call my home from 9 to 5, but my heart was not in it. I secretly hoped that a miracle would happen and would get called back to work. Or wake up from this ongoing nightmare. Neither one of those happened. I received a notification that I was financially eligible for unemployment, but it took about another month before I finally got my golden ticket telling me that I would begin to receive payments.
This was the best news I had gotten thus far in 2013. This meant that I would literally be able to spend the whole summer with my kids without having to worry about childcare. Now perhaps that doesn't sound like a big deal, but when you are shelling out $200 a week, it becomes a significant savings. Significant. In addition, I had no idea when this opportunity would present itself ever again, so I was determined to enjoy and savor every moment as much as possible. So that is exactly what I set out to do...
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