Holiday anxiety.

I sit here on my couch, a few days until Christmas, with the worst holiday anxiety I have ever had. 

I haven't always been a fan of Chrsitmas. While I LOVE the movies, the decorations, the family gathering, and the cookies, I HATE the gift giving. I'm not saying I don't enjoy receiving gifts and I certainly do appreciate every single gift that is given to me. 

I hate giving gifts. I hate the pressure of finding the perfect gift(s). I hate watching people open gifts I've given them because what if they hate it? I hate asking people what they want because I hate when people ask me what I want. 

I want nothing. I want this day to end as fast as it starts. 

This year, I especially hate this holiday and being unemployed. Don't get me wrong, like I've said, I am getting unemployment but I still cannot afford the gifts I would normally give. I used to set a spending limit of a decent amount for each person in my life and would usually end up blowing it because of overthinking. This year? This year I've been lucky if I could spend $15-20 each and it is eating me up inside. Now I know I could make gifts and get crafty, but I am not that person. On top of that, my boyfriend and I aren't buying gifts for each other because if 2016 could not get any worse, he lost his job a week after mine, got a new job the beginning of this month, and lost it last week. 

I have struggled so much this year. I have struggled more this year than I have in my entire life and it is so frustrating when I feel like I can't properly buy gifts for the people who have helped me out the most this year. 

I know that they have told me that I don't need to purchase them anything, but the thought of walking into my parents house empty handed makes me sick to my stomach. Not only does my anxiety kick into overdrive, but it also depresses me to the point where I escape to the bathroom or my bedroom and cry. 

Just typing this out has the exact same effect except I don't have to hide to cry, I can do it sitting here. 

PSA: If you or anyone you know is low on cash but asks you what you want for Christmas, DO NOT SAY NOTHING. Think of ANYTHING under $20 that you could use. Ask for a few little things or one big thing. Suggest a gift card. As much as it pains me to say this, suggest lottery tickets - I think they're one of the worst gifts ever but they could be winners! Just please, try to come up with anything. You might be looking after their wallet, but you don't know how much this might be eating them up inside. 

Now, I'm going to go back to counting down the days that are left until this awful holiday is over. 

What am I doing?!

When I was young, I'm sure my answer was something along the lines of a princess or a teacher. I actually remember living in our old house, setting all my stuffed animals up on my bed, and teaching them lessons daily. I made up assignments they had to do, graded them, and even had a "grade book" with all their grades in it. 

When I got older, like high school older, and it came time to really answer that question my answer was a fashion designer, business owner, and teacher. I drew sketches of dresses on skinny bodies and colored them in, but realized I wasn't artistically talented. 

When I applied for college, I applied with an education major. My SAT scores weren't the greatest and I was wait listed or accepted for the second semester to some of the schools. The school I went to wanted to see a semesters worth of grades before I could declare education so I went in as undeclared. Unfortunatly things did not go my way and finally 3 semesters later I declared a business management major. 

I ended up loving business. I took a small business class and one of our semester assignments was to make a small business plan. I've never put so much work into an assignment in my entire life. It really made me realize that some day I hope/wish/dream to own my own business. 

As far as teaching goes? I am not book smart at all and I have no problems admitting it, so holding only a 3.0 GPA would have never happened in college. I couldn't study to save my life. I was the queen of writing papers an hour before class and printing them out as I walked out the door. I partied a lot. I skipped class a lot. I was definitely not education major material. 

Which brings me to now, November 2016 almost 2017 in a little over a month. What the hell am I doing with my life? I expected to have that all figured out by now but clearly I haven't. 

I still want to own my own business. I want to get into the entertainment industry (who doesn't?!). I want to be on the radio. I want to be an author, I think I want this one more than anything right now.  I want to be a wife. I want to be a stay at home mom. I want to be successful. I want to wake up everyday and be happy/excited for my career. 

When will that happen? I have no idea. So for now I'll just keep on thinking of different things I could be doing, researching how to get into those things (because that's what I spend a lot of my free time doing ) and then closing those tabs on my phone hoping I'll forget about them.

I like to crush my own dreams. I'm sick, apparently. 

It's been two weeks.

It's been two weeks. It's been a really long two weeks of being unemployed. 

I was upset and confused initially. In that moment, I didn't know what to ask or say. 100 things ran through my mind: will I be able to afford rent? How about the rest of my bills? Will my parents be mad? Will my boyfriend be pissed? What the fuck just happened?!

After it was over and I left my office? I was pissed. I was really really pissed. I'll never outright discuss who I worked for or what industry it was in, but just know that they have ruined small companies for me - like I'm talking like 10 people are on the payroll. 

So, for the first time since I started working I found myself suddenly unemployed. Unemployed before the holidays. Awesome. It's a very weird feeling. I pictured a lot of downtime and sleeping but I've done the opposite. Having the two weeks off has been nice but I'm ready to go back to work. I really am not a fan of being home all day. I miss the interaction with people and wearing actually clothing, not tshirts and yoga pants. 

What I don't understand is how people can say that there are no jobs available. You have to look everywhere and more than just once a week. I've applied to almost 50 jobs. I have more jobs saved to Indeed that I need to apply to. But the response from employers? That's where I'm struggling. So far I have been getting rejection emails out the ass and I'm trying real hard to stay positive but it's just not working. 

My favorite jobs are the ones where I meet every single qualification and have additional years than what they ask for, but yet on the phone or in person they ask for one specific qualification not listed in the ad which I don't have. I had two phone interviews Monday where that exact thing happened. I don't get it. 

I know something is bound to come up, I'm applying daily. But with it being mid month already and so close to the holidays, I just feel defeated already. 

PLUS Unemployment was pushed back a bit, not by my employer but by this wonderful (God awful) state I live in. Fantastic. 

And then I decided to start blogging, again.

Growing up, I used Xanga, Livejournal, and Deadjournal regularly, but stopped sometime in college. Fast forward to a few years ago and I decided to start blogging. I have always liked writing. I dream of writing a book someday and seeing my name on top of the NYT best sellers list. 

I learned a bit when I "blogged" - blogged is in quotes because more than half of my posts were forced and not me. I signed up for all kinds of link-ups, purposely did things that I might not have just to have something to blog about, and spent more money than I should have on something I barely gave a year and a half to. 

One day I just stopped. I didn't want to take/edit pictures and I didn't want to feel like I had to write or schedule posts when I'd go away or was busy. Blogging became too forced and I noticed that 75% of the bloggers I followed stopped blogging too, so I knew I wasn't the only one. 

To get to the point I'm trying to make, I'm back to blogging because I feel like I have a lot to say and I feel like people will be able to relate to what I'm experiencing in life. This blog will sound more like a casual conversation, I'm not stressing over if things sound correct. There will be swearing because if you and I are sitting down over a coffee or a glass of wine, they're bound to come out. I can guarantee there will not be a picture in each post - isn't there some stupid rule where you're supposed to have one so people can find you or something like that? I don't know how often I'll post, I'm aiming for atleast once a week. 

You might be thinking who I am, why I've written so much without even introducing myself from the beginning. I'm Jen. I'm thirty, not married, without children, and for the first time since I've started working 11 years ago - I am unemployed. That's been a pretty hard pill to swallow and it's only been a week - clearly I did not quit on my own terms or I'd be feeling a bit better about it. I was politely "laid off" with the promise of my unemployment not being denied (it wasn't, thankfully). But that topic is reserved for another post and another day. I am a giant Harry Potter fan, I love the beach, I dream of living in NYC (it is hands down my most favorite city ever), my social life is less than exciting, and I spend most of my time on Instagram liking puppy pictures and reading creeping stories from Reddit's NoSleep forum (not after 5pm - I made it a rule so I wouldn't be so creeped out at night). I like run on sentences and correctly spelled words, but basic grammar rules escape me - don't expect super perfect blog posts! 

And now that this is over, I'm going to draft another entry because when I get into writing and get on a roll, I get really into it until I give up and want nothing to do with it for days or weeks. 

Peace out.