#20: How To Deal When Your Biggest Fears Come True
Rock bottom or new beginning?
Laid Off Life is a place of respite for the weary workforce. Whether you’re unemployed, underemployed, or just trying to make it through the workday, let this be your 5-minute mental break from the grind of late-stage capitalism.
How To Deal When Your Biggest Fears Come True
For most of this year, the fear that kept me up at night was that I would no longer be able to pay rent and lose my apartment. A very real fear when you’ve been laid off and lost your primary source of income in one of the most expensive cities in the world. Employment and housing are inextricably linked, unfortunately.
A little bit of background for those of you who don’t live in the NYC area. This isn’t just any apartment I’m talking about. This is the kind of apartment you spend more than 20 years manifesting until the fates and planets align once in your New York lifetime and say, “This apartment, which is the size of an actual house in other parts of the country, which is newly remodeled, which even has a garage, IS YOURS!!”
This apartment is so rare and spectacular that you have to break your lease on another not nearly as special apartment to move in. And once you do, you are briefly living the New York dream you envisioned when you were 17 and dead set on attending NYU. Now, look at you! You have a great job! You have a great apartment in the only city you ever wanted to live in! What could go wrong?
The very moment you think that, in brief succession, you are laid off from your job and the lot next door to your apartment is sold, thus beginning the slow unraveling of the life you’d been building. What happens next? Your dream becomes a nightmare.
Noise, noise, noise! Noise every day from 7am-6pm Monday through Friday and 9am to 4pm on Saturday. Cement mixers idling outside, sometimes as early as 4:30am. Rats, rats, rats, always on the hunt for luxury housing themselves, settle in. You hear them running around every night, partying in your walls. Next comes demolition, which feels like living through a months-long series of earthquakes. Excavators and power drills make ring in your ears even once they’ve stopped.And finally, the coup de grâce. Structural damage to your building caused by a sloppy demolition — an early Christmas gift from the shady developer!
Your worst fear has come true. Maybe not the way you expected. Blessedly, you can still pay your rent. But alas, you are told you’ll have to vacate your apartment forever while they demo your building to repair the damage.
Last week I felt like I was starting to get the hang of this career transition thing, and this week I’m renting an AirBnB and putting everything I own into storage. Somehow, this seems like the appropriate ending to a banner year.
Before this newsletter ventures into trauma porn territory, the important bit is, I work hard to make intentional choices in my life. I prefer to focus on what I’m running toward as opposed to what I’m running from. It’s the difference between being proactive and reactive to your life circumstances. But sometimes, no matter how proactive you are, things happen that are completely out of your control.
I’m trying to continue to embrace all the changes that are being foist upon me - a career transformation, a new home, a whole new life. To all my Type A overachievers out there whose love language is planning ahead, I’m sure you can understand how rock bottom this feels.
I have nothing planned — from what I’m going to eat for lunch today (salad, maybe?) to where I’m going to live to where my next paycheck is coming from.
So what do you do when you find yourself in a worst case scenario?
When I was laid off, the one decision I did make was that I wasn’t going to think long-term about my career for at least one year — maybe even longer. I made a commitment to short-term decision-making, forcing myself to live in the present moment, without worrying about having my future career path all planned out. That meant, not making decisions based on health insurance (Oh man! I’m going to have to dedicate an entire newsletter to the subject of health insurance 😱) and only exploring professional opportunities that sparked joy — at least, for as long as I could afford to.
I’m applying this strategy to my housing solution as well. I’m not rushing to jump back into a lease. I need to re-evaluate how I want to live and where, without letting desperation lead the way. That might mean more AirBnBing, subletting, and nomading, until I figure out where I want and need to be. A new beginning. Literally.
I have to imagine that there is a reason for all of this upheaval in my life. Even if the reason is for me to envision better, bigger dreams for myself.
Worthy Time Wasters: The Light & Fluffy Edition
Here are my weekly recs to combat doom scrolling.
With so much uncertainty in my life, my consumption has become primarily comfort-based. If it’s dark or complex, my brain is rejecting it. If you are similarly cruising for levity, here are my recs.
Normal Gossip delivers juicy, strange, funny, and utterly banal gossip about people you’ll never know and never meet. And the best part is, it’s all real. If you want to hear an hour-long saga about a rivalry at fancy dog salon, an au pair arrangement gone awry, or the world’s most bizarre ceviche making session (Yes, Yes I do!), this is your podcast.
The Gilded Age follows old haves, new haves, and have nots in New York City at the turn of the century. In the great tradition of Downton Abbey, scenes are bite-sized, time advances about three times the pace of real life, and the costumes and sets are as opulent as they come.
In the world of Julian Fellowes, trivial storylines are given just as much weight as dramatic ones, which means you’ll spend most of season 2 following a character who is taking an alarm clock apart and putting it back together again. (Apologies for the spoiler.) There are some serious subjects tackled as well, but mostly, you can expect the escape of a period piece with a little bit of historical accuracy thrown in so you feel like you’re learning.
Cozy mystery, anyone? The Maid is the first book in the Molly Maid series and of course, soon to be a movie. Our hero in this book is Molly Gray, a 20-something hotel maid on the spectrum who is struggling to navigate life’s complexities after her beloved grandmother passed away.
Molly's life is upended the day she enters the suite of the infamous and wealthy Charles Black, only to find him dead in his bed. Before she knows what's happening, Molly's unusual demeanor has the police targeting her as their prime suspect. She quickly finds herself in a Clue-like, locked-room mystery where she has to think like Columbo in order to prove her innocence and find Mr. Black’s killer.
Gems From My DMs
The best stuff people sent me.
Your coworkers don’t need to know you’re into steampunk cosplay, and other important career advice//And the best performance of 2023 goes to…Gwenyth Paltrow for her testimony in the half-day of skiing lost trial and the musical hasn’t even come out yet! //This dachshund has rhythm//Your friendly reminder not to be that one person on LinkedIn over the holidays// Deeply relate to this child// This guy! //Belinda Carlisle for L.A. Gear Christmas throwback //Beware drunk birds // ASMR with Sonia Morgan//Torn between the mushroom church and the tongue choir//
💃🏻💃🏻💃🏻 Don’t keep all this fun to yourself! 🤸🏻♀️🤸🏻♀️🤸🏻♀️
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