Whither I goest?

Apart from being very depressed due to my lack of unemployment for more than 3 years I am also quite bewildered and very lonely.  My bewilderment comes about because not having a job is anathema to everything I’ve been brought up to believe as truth!


I was taught that I would work by going to school, which is a child’s work, then to university, I would get a good job, marry and raise a family and the cycle would continue.  My life would be complete and it seemed a pretty good outline to me.  When it did not follow in sequence I was not worried since I was grounded in the belief that the cycle would eventually re-start.  The good job, marriage and family never came and yet I still had hope.  But now that there is no job, the hope has diminished and sits at the bottom of the well like a puddle.  Shock and puzzlement has set in having me splayed out on the floor of life!  The ways in which I know to pick myself up do not work anymore, it is as if I am trying to stand up on an icy surface but I cannot get purchase.  I am not wearing the correct footwear and I don’t have the techniques to allow me to stand up tall and walk off the unemployment ice.


Not being able to stand tall is indeed humbling, but is that the lesson to be learnt when as I score myself, searching for the pride which must be removed, I find little.  I’ve never thought of myself as being better, smarter, richer, and more beautiful than others.  As a matter of fact until till recently I never saw myself as being intelligent at all, certainly not enough to read for a second degree.  I decided to test that fear and so far, I am doing well.

Searchingly, I ask myself  “what’s the lesson to be learnt?” “What am I missing in my search?”  "Did I select the wrong thing to like doing?"  "If I figure out what is the right thing, then I will get a job?"  "Why can I not take good care of myself anymore?"  What is the thing or things that makes me different from the many whom I painfully watch, peering through my windows, each morning as they, smartly dressed, head out to make their daily bread?  What happens when I CANNOT seek work because I am too old?  They tell me that I am too old now, although I am not a retirement age, but I know I need to provide the financial wherewithal to maintain myself.

I have faced the humiliation of unemployment before albeit not for such a lengthy period of time.  Under-employment has also dogged me but I have taken any decent work to survive.  Decent work cannot be found by me anymore and in fact, the decent work taken previously to survive is hanging like an albatross’ sac around my neck.  Recruiters see the many jobs on my résumé and conclude that I am flighty, unfocussed and not a ‘good hire’.  Not that, I needed to survive and willed myself to learn new skills at every job, willed myself to see the importance of menial work, willed away the negative emotions of shame apathy, grief, fear, hatred,  blame, regret, resentment, anger, hostility and instead exhibited the emotions of interest, enthusiasm,  laughter, empathy, action,  and curiosity.

No one wants to be around someone who is unemployed.  Those that called themselves friend, you see no more.  People feel more comfortable offering you a handout than a hand-up.  It as if the disease of unemployment will attach itself to them if they are near to you.  The comments made upon meeting express surprise at my well-being, my healthy look.  Well, you’ve got to work hard at maintaining a healthy mind, body and spirit because I am job-hunting and no potential employer will hire me if I am not looking well.    The money is hurriedly pushed in my hand, many times I don’t know what they are trying to do and cannot understand why, why is my hand being pulled, words are murmured and off they go!   Am I grateful?  Yes and no. I always need money, who doesn’t but more importantly, I need a way to make money, to better my financial situation and in so doing better my material, psychological and spiritual situation.  It is hard to pray, meditate or believe in more when each breath is one of uncertainty, doubt and loss of self.  I cannot do normal anymore since this is situation is not normal!  Simple decisions are suddenly difficult to piece together and I know I need advocates: others to believe in me, others willing to help me make those big decisions.    I need a way to end the shame that comes when someone tried to push money in my hand or tucks an envelope in my purse for me to find later on.

 I need a way to remove the bewilderment!  I fear that indeed I shall end upon the streets of Trinidad and Tobago since I cannot afford to pay a rent more than I pay currently and I have been told to move.  I try to comprehend this nearing fact and to role play how I will deal with the situations. “Where does one wash one’s self?”  “How do I protect myself from rape and beatings”?   “Will there be others to talk with me?”  “How did I get here?”  The bewilderment grows worse!  I need a way to re-gain my dignity.

Am I unique?  No.  There are many in Trinidad and Tobago and indeed the world over who are suffering the same fate, who suddenly do not fit into the very world they have created and cannot find a positive glorious new niche, yet each I believe sees his/her position as unique, each one of us dies to self each day, expectant of a re-birth into beauty, joy and dignity.

 I write this to share in the hope, that those like me get a bit of comfort in knowing they are not alone, that those in situations like mine can share their solutions that have eased their pain and bewilderment.  The world is changing with systems and economies breaking down, morality codes being ignored into non-existence, the platitudes way too worn out to be even remembered.  I am not the world without end but only one individual who is shattered by the changes in her own world, who like Humpty Dumpty, cannot put me together again.   My world has not yet ended since I am here today.  So what do I do?  How do I feel human again?  How do I stop this madness?  Does anybody hear?  Does anyone care?  Heh!  The sun is in His heaven and all is right with the world!

Until,

September 19, 2012