Getting Fired

Getting fired is like being unexpectedly  gut punched and having the wind knocked out of you.   You’re out cold before you know what hit you.

With just a simple, neutral phrase, my whole world seemed to shimmer and then flatline.  I spent the next three days in a daze of desperation with my stomach in knots, too panicked and afraid to sleep, too sick-ish to eat, too shattered to think clearly.   Much as I wanted to and thought it would be therapeutic, I couldn’t cry although I stayed right on the edge.   I spent several hours curled up on the loveseat, clutching a pillow and burying my face in it,  replaying the brief termination scene in my head, as if I could re-write it with a happier ending or better yet, turn it into a nasty nightmare.  The television droned on night and day, the neighbors routinely came and went, the mailman came across the lawn whistling.  Life wasn’t even respectful  enough to slow down.

On the second day I had a long and quite stern talk with myself.

Nobody’s ever died from being fired, I reminded myself.

You’ll pull yourself together and find something else.  Something better.

You have to let this go and move on.

Stop brooding and worrying.  Get up. Get busy. Get over it.

And just as I dragged myself upright to make the bed, change the litter boxes, shower and dress and wash the breakfast (or lunch or dinner) dishes, my belly would clench and a rat-a-tat tightness would snatch at my chest and speed up my heartbeat.

Fear, I told myself, Just anxiety.  Uncalled for.

You’re working yourself up to a heart attack.

Quit. Quit this minute.

But other thoughts crowded past and pushed aside my advice. 

I’m sixty five years old, single, with three dogs and five cats to support and no good way to explain being fired.  There are bills due and no money.  Every hour is putting me closer to the grave or worse.

Oh, stop being melodramatic, a second voice in my head snapped impatiently.

Let me be! the first one snarled back as I crawled back to the loveseat and reached for the pillow again, hoping against hope to fall asleep and wake up with it all behind me but quite happily willing to settle for an hour or two of oblivion.

The instant I woke, the knots in my belly and the tightness in my chest returned.  On what was almost a whim, I knelt in front of the toilet and shoved my fingers down my throat repeatedly until I gagged but it produced very little except bile. 

Apparently, I said to the dogs who were hovering anxiously at the bathroom door, you can’t upchuck being afraid like it was a tuna sandwich.  I spit, rinsed my mouth, tried again and finally gave up.  It was time, I thought bitterly, to straighten up and fly right.

I took a seat in front of the computer and began.

Hating every keystroke, I started with the dismal and degrading process of filing for unemployment.  It made me feel like a deadbeat.

You’ve worked for fifty years - fifty years! - I told myself brutally, this is not welfare or charity or a handout!  But still it felt wrong and more than a little shameful.  Five cats and three dogs, I reminded myself as a sharp stab of fear traveled from my chest to my throat.  I kept on.  Panic and depression swirled in my gut like a hoard of malicious butterflies but I kept on.  I remembered a public speaking course I’d taken in high school and how I was so scared I’d nearly fainted.  I remembered what seasick felt like and how my grandmother had held me over the side of the boat.  Sick it up, child, she’d said encouragingly, You’ll feel better.  It felt like that only with nothing substantial to sick up.  Dramamine wasn’t going to help this particular kind of nausea.  When your back is up against a wall, all you can do is keep on keeping on.

I picked what looked like the best half dozen job sites and plowed my way through.

I checked the help wanted section of the newspaper.

I updated my resume and composed cover letters.

I quietly notified friends.

But mostly I tried to beat back the relentless, creeping fear that had taken up residence in my belly and spread to my chest.  And each time I couldn’t, I returned to the loveseat and the pillow.

You have social security, I told myself, it comes in every month.  And seven hundred in savings.  And you’re owed a week’s vacation.  The wolves may be gathering but they’re not on the doorstep yet so stop planning their meals.

Over two grand in credit card debt, the second voice chimed in with a nasty little whisper, and what if you get sick or the car breaks down or one of the animals……

ENOUGH!  I shriek back - outloud and loud enough startle all the dogs - Enough.  What the hell has happened to your faith?

Faith won’t pay the bills, the evil voice insists softly but I think I might detect just the slightest hint of uncertainty.

A friend who manages a convenience store suggests I come see him and I nervously pull on clean jeans and a freshly ironed t shirt and drive the short distance.  The store is huge by convenience store standards, brand new and still polished and shiny, not at all tired looking the way so many are.  We talk and I meet his boss and am asked to fill out an online application.  This turns out to be a  major undertaking and strains my memory in places (a lot of ground can be covered in 50 years) but I make my way through it as best I can.  At the end there’s an interesting and somewhat humorous 100 question survey where I’m asked to agree or disagree with seemingly random statements (“There are 40 days in a month” and “I’m not comfortable working around ignorant people”).    I think convenience store management must be far more of a challenge that I’d thought and while  I dread the thought of the learning this would require, I plug away, ever reminding myself that I have twenty some odd years of retail experience, and finally hit the submit button with a sigh. 

It’s a place to start, I tell the dogs wearily.  And it’s calmed my shaky nerves just a tiny bit to have done something .

Slowly and painfully, I begin to make my way back because when you come right down to it, neither Dramamine or self-pity is going to make much of a difference.  You can’t hide in a loveseat forever.