One year out of 'work'

So as of tomorrow, it's been a year since I've been out of work. Technically. 

You can argue back and forth whether being a councillor is 'work'. It certainly feels like work sometimes - you do stuff and you get paid - but it is obviously about much more than that, it's a vocation, it's public service, you don't do it for the money or the status (or at least you shouldn't). 

So I still have an income, but not a 'day job', as some might call it. And honestly, it's been really hard. Granted, in many ways I am privileged - I still have enough income to pay for my mortgage, bills and food etc. I am not in a pickle financially speaking. 

My last job was a secondment, so it wasn't really my job at all, but I felt super proud to do it, and felt really accomplished. I believed in the organisation I worked for, the project I worked on, and the people I worked with. I had finally managed to stick around for long enough somewhere to work my way up to a management position. I was so proud. And as much as it shouldn't matter, as someone who graduated into a recession, it meant a lot to be earning as much as I was. I felt recognised and valued. These things are important.

So when I didn't get the substantive position, my sense of self esteem and self worth pretty much abandoned me the instant my boss told me. And it's not her fault, and it's not the fault of the person who got the position over me, that so much of who I am is wrapped up in what I do. I'm not sure it's my fault either though, because who we are is a product of so many different things.

I took some time out to focus on me (again, this is a privilege) and started to decompress a little - juggling being a councillor with working is tiring, and stressful, and I took this as life's way of telling me to take a breather. 

I started reapplying for stuff in the new year, and then obviously not long after Covid-19 hit. Which has clearly put another spanner in the works. 

Early on I was worried that I might get sick and die, because I'm asthmatic and usually pick up every infection going, and I'm also prone to getting anxious about stuff at the best of times. I'm less worried about it now, but I still think things like long Covid and the long term health implications are scary AF, and are something I am keen to avoid. So the health concerns kind of put the job hunting on the back burner again until the summer. 

But with the background noise of the ongoing pandemic, economic uncertainty, redundancies, it's really hard to try and get on with normal life. Job hunting in the time of Covid-19, especially when you need a degree of flexibility in order to meet your existing commitments, is difficult.

We're all experiencing this time in different ways, and I am in no way able to speak for any experience other than my own, in terms of being unemployed at this time. But I do believe it's important to share how we're all feeling, especially now, to enable us to be kinder to each other, and help each other get through this. It's so annoying when it feels like you're the only one feeling a certain way. 

Hopefully in a year's time we'll be out of this mess, or at least on the journey to the way out (fingers crossed) and things will be a lot brighter. But for me, the last year has probably been one of the worst. Would not recommend.