Don’t feel sad for me!

It’s really only been 10 days of unemployment. My husband wishes I wouldn’t use the word “unemployed”.

“You’ve got freelance writing projects, that’s not unemployed to me!” Joel says cheerfully, before turning to his own work.

By virtue of having given birth nearly seven years ago, I’m used to unstable work. Part-time roles, job sharing, signing short-term contracts, working for myself: it all feels about as stable as pushing a grand piano across a frozen lake.

I am lucky to have a husband with a job, it’s true. But purpose, human interaction, and a bank account of one’s own is also something to aspire to.

Anyway, here is a list of things I’ve noticed while being unemployed:

• Everyone else is employed. I look at these people in their patent leather shoes, their ironed shirts, carrying their take-away coffees, with their lanyards dangling and dancing. I imagine how these people came across suitable jobs, then carefully addressed all the selection criteria using all the key words, and they impressed someone else in patent leather shoes and got the job. They get paid fortnightly, maybe, and buy winter boots or books or chocolate or wine or dinner without a moment’s hesitation. I imagine they have friendly and reliable colleagues (except for that one guy), and a tin of International Roast in the communal kitchen.
• My dog Mack is also unemployed, and is the best companion. We walked around the neighbourhood for two hours one day this week. On one patchy, weedy lawn was a collection of tyres and an abandoned boat trailer. Sad yucca plants have been allowed to grow up and over windows in several gardens. Quite a few people have installed actual flag poles to fly the Australian flag. Others have carefully cut out squares of fake turf to cover the effects of the drought. McDonald’s drive-thru was heaving at 11.30 in the morning (do they need a girl, I wonder?).
• The highlight of each day at home is making a country-style tuckshop sandwich with Three Threes sweet mustard pickles and thin slices of cheddar cheese. I told a lovely friend about my sandwiches the other day, and I think she felt sad for me. Don’t feel sad for me! Three Threes sweet mustard pickles are a happy shade of yellow and filled with crispy chunks of my favourite vegetables. They remind me of eating the sandwiches my grandmother used to pack for my family to have on the trip home from her house in Tamworth. We’d eat them in a park at Dunedoo across the road from the White Rose cafe, where other families were ordering hot chips and milkshakes. (Don’t feel sad for me!)
• Everyday I put on nice clothes and bright lipstick in an effort not to melt into a muddy puddle. People often mistake this for me having found work. “No,” I have to say. “Still nothing.”
• I’ve been spending a lot of time in op-shops, my happy place. I found an amazing black studded jacket for me, and a hat with dinosaur spikes on it for my daughter. Yesterday, I noticed a couple about my age looking through the clothes racks. The man was wearing a tartan jumper with a grey hood. As they worked their way down the aisle, the man pulled out an identical tartan jumper with a grey hood and tapped his girlfriend on the shoulder to show her. She nodded politely. Neither of them laughed.
• I have the same schedule as the rich, retired and bored people of my town. I see my old high school biology teacher more than I would like. The first time I saw him he asked why on earth I’d moved back. His daughter lives in Paris. All I remember about his teaching style was that he asked me to drop biology as an elective at the end of Year 10 and to please go to the library and read for the remainder of our classes. He did the same thing to my older sister. I guess we were both huge troublemakers who loved Mr Darcy more than we loved cell structure and Petri dishes
• I just asked Joel if I should publish this, or if it just makes me look like a sad sack. “A funny sad sack,” he said.