Life After Contenting: Days 1-3

I was blindsided Tuesday and am ashamed that I was. After months of waiting for the hammer to fall on the design and copy desk, then being allowed to apply for different positions with the new corporate overlord and ultimately given the privilege of a seat on the newly-created digital producer desk ... well, 6 months later, the whole lot of us were laid off. I am seriously regretting the large purchase of Restoration Hardware towels and the massage I indulged in over the weekend. 

Boy, did i get too comfortable. Now, I'm facing the prospect of job hunting, and at my age and with my level of social ineptitude, this is going to be NOT a nightmare! Oh, no! Evidently it will be A JOURNEY DURING WHICH I'M BELIEVED IN AS I GO THROUGH OPEN DOORS AND OVER HORIZONS WHERE BETTER THINGS AWAIT AND A MORE MEANINGFUL PHASE WILL PRESENT ITSELF THROUGH MANY CLICHES blah blah blah. At least that's what I'm being led to believe. Thanks for the encouragement, but nope. Not feeling any of that. So far, just anxiety and nightmares and rage. But then, it's only been 3 days. 

So, in my effort to get my head right and power forward -- with much wine and whining and walking to the refrigerator for snacks and stopping to pet the cat and noticing the spot on the ceiling and wondering if that smell is me or something more/less disturbing -- I'm going to (wait for it) document (novel, I know!) this "journey" that will definitely not lead me to Italy but maybe East Memphis if I'm lucky. 

Actually, I have nothing to document right now. I filed for unemployment. That was demoralizing. I updated by resume, spending way too much time worrying again if that one element really looks penis-ish, like my brother said. Jerk. 

Instead, today, here's the Facebook post I finally wrote as a mass reply to the kind people who really seem to care whether or not I'm on the verge of actually going to the dodgy Kroger on Cleveland after dark which would be an obvious indication I've given up and an intervention is in order.

On my best day, I'm barely able to push a comprehensible string of words out of my mouth. I get tongue-tied and flustered and usually punctuate my gibberish with an expletive for good measure. So, on one of my worst days, I've been incapable of responding properly to the folks who have reached out to me because my sadness and rage and weariness all live in a knot in my throat right now.

I will cry if I talk about leaving The Commercial Appeal after 17 years and the newspaper biz entirely after about 25 years. This really is all I - and many of the folks in this boat with me - have known. My kid spent many, many hours in the newsroom because I worked shitty days and shitty hours and we didn't have family around and the attitude at the time of the powers-that-be was not to bend to the needs of a working mother. In fact, I was told once when I asked for some flexibility: "You knew what the job was when you took it."

Indeed, I did, and because I believed that ultimately journalism and my part in it would benefit not only our community but also my kid and the future she would inherit, I kept at it until the bitter end. Until it didn't resemble the beast I once knew. Until we were declared by the POTUS as "the enemy."

Jim will keep committing journalism; I'll do something else. This time next week, I'll be at my dad's house in Maine, having cocktails on a cliff looking out toward Canada and, hopefully, gaining a little clarity, a little hope and a little lobster in m'belly.  Thanks, y'all.