I love October. I really do. It might be partly because I was born in October. Yes, I do believe our birth month influences our favourite season, but not because of our birth as such. Rather, I think we grow up looking forward to our birthday as kids, and as a consequence our birth month is subliminally programmed into our minds as a season to look forward to.
Mind you, October has its objective charms:
My dahlias are still going strong; I expected them to keep going until the first frost but never the less I’m still a little bit impressed that this flower bed is just becoming better and better. Sure, some of the flowers, like the ones below, are less than spectacular in their own right – I really dislike the rather faded salmon colour of these flowers, but they have a pretty shape and as the picture shows they are great for bees and other insects at a time when loads of other flowers have gone.
I’m feeling rather down these days, though, in spite of my love of autumn. It’s hard, being unemployed and sending out application after application and getting – as a best result – rejections. It seems a lot of companies no longer send out rejections unless they have an automated system to do it for them, and this is quite understandable, considering that some of the jobs I’ve applied for have had 5-600 applicants for a single job.
Of course it doesn’t help that The Flâneur Husband is off on a 2-week business trip. I miss him, of course, but just as importantly he gives me a weekly rhythm which is just going haywire when he’s away and I don’t have a job. What’s week, what’s weekend? It all blurs and becomes a gray sort of non-time.
I’d probably be quite content to be a stay-at-home husband if the circumstances were right for it, but they aren’t. First of all we can’t afford it – and money is obviously a major determining factor in deciding your life style – and secondly I’m just not sure I would have enough to DO to occupy me, were I to be a full-time stay-at-home spouse. We live in an apartment, and the garden is by our holiday home, so there’s no way it could provide me with full-time entertainment.
Still, it can give me highlights like this one:
So… I still need a job. Not just for the money, but for something to do with my time.
I’ve been rather down-hearted lately, though not in a “depressed” sense – I’ve previously been diagnosed with depression and I have the deepest respect for that term, and this is NOT depression. It’s just a rough patch. I want to stress that difference because the term “depression” is so often abused to describe “feeling down” or “the blues”.
It does mean I’ve been unable to do some of the things I wanted to do. I didn’t get the big foodie-post written up for Claire‘s guest-blogging post, and there have been many other things I haven’t gotten around to doing, even though I had promised myself to do it.
People do understand, though, that this is a rough time to go through, and my biggest problem is to tell people what is happening, including my husband. Somehow it’s easier to share this with a somehow anonymous public, rather than telling it to friends and family.
At the same time, remember – as I do – how privileged I am. There are so many other people out there where unemployment means the risk of not being able to feed their children, getting proper medical care or other serious implications. If this entry makes you feel compassionate and makes you want to help others, find a charity that helps people in developing countries. I can help myself, but others don’t have that luxury.
I really feel for you. It seems one of the biggest problems with modern life is uncertainty. Whilst job security was expected by my parents’ generation it no longer exists and we may have more opportunities than they ever did but I believe security and certainty are really important to humans. It gives us the opportunity to flourish when we know where we are, so to speak.
We have a friend who is trying to find a job at the moment and we still haven’t heard what is happening about my husband’s job yet. There should be an announcement on Monday. 😦
We moved around a lot for a spell, 8 times in 7 years and I had to let go of any real idea of a career. I stayed at home and found it difficult too. It was only really when we got our own garden and then the allotment that things changed. I went back to college and studied horticulture and loved it.
Are there any courses you could maybe do? Maybe one day a week or something? Have you thought about doing something with gardening or cooking? Maybe it’s the opportunity to do something different.
I really hope things pick up for you soon. WW x
Things will work out eventually, but right now it’s just really frustrating.
Gardening and cooking are currently not options as careers; training for a new thing would simply not give me the income I need, so I need to stick with the sort of office-based jobs that I know how to do. (And maybe supplement with some translation or whatever as needed – I’ve done that before, and since I’m blogging in my second language I can hardly be considered out of practice with the English language.)
Fingers crossed for your husband!
Is it possible to get training grants there if you’re unemployed? The course I did was one afternoon a week, granted it was over 2 years before I got my qualification but I could have done it faster if I had lived in a city. It didn’t cost a lot either because it was subsidised by the government. I paid less than £100 for one year. Maybe there is something like that. The translation work sounds interesting though. Fingers crossed for you too.
In Denmark tuition on further education is free, and we actually do get paid to study from the age of 18. Not much, but some. Still, it’s not going to be anywhere near what I need to be able to get by, so still not an option.
(And translating really isn’t that interesting, but it’s simple. I’ve subtitled “The Simpsons” and translated newsletters for international dating sites, and it’s really just a matter of shutting down your own creative side and channelling the intentions of others.)
I wish you luck in your search. Just remember that the hard times do pass. And while depression is hard to come to terms with, you do learn to recognize it and use the tools you have to get through it. I would love for it to be gone completely! But alas, that doesn’t usually happen. Gardening and cooking are great tools though.
I’m not depressed – trust me, been there and know what it’s like. This is just “being a bit low”, which is not crippling in the same way as depression. Still, the tools to combat it are the same, and I’m using them all. Planning stuff (i.e. Christmas), going for long walks, baking stuff…
I think I just need a job. I’m not good at being unemployed.
Well that’s good. 🙂
I do understand as my husband has been unemployed for a number of years, but since my job is administrative he has stayed home to help there while I work the long hours until retirement…he works a couple of days a week…it is hard and he had a bad time adjusting…you are certainly tying to keep a positive outlook as much as possible..gardens do help!
Unemployment can be a tough business, especially when it’s for an extended period. We’re all so used to defining ourselves through what we do for a living, so being unemployed can easily feel like a personal existential crisis.
Still, we are more than our jobs, so it’s just a matter of focusing on that. I am garden and food and books and, well, ME. Too bad nobody will pay me for that, but at least if I remember this it becomes just a matter of money, rather than identity.
The garden is good therapy, and I am so glad it’s there for you, at least part time. We are all fortunate to have the Internet as a resource for finding anything, including maybe employment. Sending you positive job-finding energy!
Positive energy never hurts, and it’s much appreciated.
Gardens can help us through a lot; it’s something physical to do and a place that also invites introspection and meditation. Rare qualities to be treasured.
I wish you luck in our job hunt. It would be difficult to be down in the dumps and looking for work to do so you can fill your time. It is hard to realize just what not having a job might do to someone if they are used to being busy all the time.
The important thing is finding the highlights; day-to-day might be dull and uneventful, but there ARE great things happening that can cheer me up when I look forward to them and back at them. This afternoon, for instance, I’m off to visit my Grandmother and then Thursday-Saturday is the annual family get-together where we make 1600 litres of apple juice back on the old farm where my Mum grew up. Washing apples, pulping apples, pressing apples, bottling the juice and finally pasteurizing it; things my family has been doing since the 30’s when my great-grandfather started the tradition. As comfortably well-known and reassuring as Christmas, or at least Christmas with three days of hard work and 4 tons of apples thrown in. Good times ahead!