Facts & Arguments is a daily personal piece submitted by readers. Have a story to tell? See our guidelines at tgam.ca/essayguide.
The idea of unemployment as a blessing came on slowly. It crept up on me while I was spending my days writing, uncovering who I was when freed from others' expectations; picking my daughter up from school and taking her for long afternoon walks in the park, watching her pull silky milkweed seeds from opening pods and letting them slip from her fingers, feathery snow swirling around her as she ran ahead on the trail. The dog got his walk every day. There was time to help with French homework and make home-cooked meals: butternut squash soup and baked sweet potatoes with black beans. The Jamie Oliver books came off the shelf.
The anxiety was there. Curled up like dark smoke at the back of my mind. It came out to keep an eye on my fun, asking tough questions.
How will you pay your bills? Curb your spending? Live on one salary?
When it was irate, it reminded me writing would never pay, my husband would resent me, my family and friends must think there was something wrong with me.
Maybe I had a bad résumé, did poorly in interviews, didn't perform well on the job, so the contract positions I'd taken never kept me on.
The anxiety led me to find a temp job. That, and the exhaustion of overinterviewing for permanent positions, going through excruciating final stages: three, four, once five interviews for one job. Spending time on company questionnaires and writing tests, only to find polite rejections in my inbox.
So the pay for my temp job wasn't great. So it wasn't in my field. So it wasn't remotely what I wanted to do. Not everyone gets to do what they want. I'd be working.
And in that there was something.
The job hit me like an icy lake in the early days of summer. One day, I was planning my writing schedule, leisurely sipping green tea with a dollop of honey, and the next, I was madly ironing work shirts, figuring out packed lunches and tutoring schedules.
My time was snatched away from me. I was in the backyard yelling at the dog to hurry up, so I could help my daughter with her hair and get myself ready.
After work was worse. My daughter went to after-school care and her school day became the length of a workday.
Somehow, we had to accomplish tutoring, homework, baths and dinner in the two hours before her bedtime. Planning dinner was painful.
My husband and I texted like teenagers, repeating: I don't know, what do you want to do? It always ended the same way: greasy takeout or grilled cheese. I thought I'd have time to write, but by the time my daughter went to bed at eight o'clock, I fell into my own bed, picked up a book and was asleep within the hour.
When I realized I couldn't write at the end of the day, I fantasized about getting up at four and writing for two hours before starting my day. It never happened. How do people do that?
The job was an administrative position at an insurance company. I managed my boss's calendar: She received invites all day long, which conflicted with other meetings and appointments. I had to magically rearrange them, catch her as she rushed from one meeting to the next and ask her which was more important.
If my calendar looked like that, I'd move to Belize and drop every laptop and phone I owned into the ocean, then sell oysters on the beach. I imagined happiness resided in far-off places. Sometimes, I was a chocolatier in Switzerland.
"I never ask my admins to get me coffee," my boss said to me. It hadn't crossed my mind that I might have to do that.
One day, I wondered why there was no hand sanitizer left in the office, no tissues, no pens, before realizing it was my job to order them.
I was bad at the job. Not because I minded doing those types of things, but because I'm dizzied by spreadsheets, folders and fine details. I'm a dreamer, not an organizer. Creative people thrive in chaos, don't they? That's what I told them when I quit.
I'm looking for something more creative, something more aligned with my personality and skill set. It's not you. It's me. I want to write all day long with my dog curled up beside me, pick my daughter up at school, laugh in the evenings with my husband without feeling the sickening stress of the next day.
Time is an extravagance I haven't earned.
I don't think I deserve it more than others. My husband hasn't had the chance to pursue unpaid dreams. So I live with guilt over the disappointment I may have caused him and the financial burden I lifted only momentarily like a tease.
I doubt myself, wonder if I've lost my work ethic.
I know I had it. I got through many jobs that were not my calling and was happy enough to have a paycheque.
At least I know the value of time.
I've seen the beautiful things that can be unveiled in its presence; when everything else is stripped away and there's nothing left to do but discover your truest self.
Melanie Scott-Dela Cruz lives in Kitchener, Ont.