After
two months of a completely open schedule, I knew that I needed to give myself
more structure. Productivity anxiety had
started to kick in, and I felt my freedom being sucked into a void of laziness
and distracted living. So, on the
morning of June 20, I got out of bed (at my leisure, of course) and sat down to
write out the tasks I still had to do before my wedding day on August 6. I was calmly enjoying my smoothie at the same
time.
The
list was extensive, but definitely manageable. It had two columns: things I
needed to get done, and things that my love could help me get done. Since I was
making it, his column was obviously shorter, which allowed me to add more of my
specialized tasks below it. I had transferred
everything from our previous lists to this new Master List when I heard a thud
coming from the front of the house.
I took
another drink of my smoothie and looked out the window above my office. My love was walking to the door at the back
of our house. A different kind of anxiety hit the back of my throat, and I
swallowed to move it into my stomach. I
got up from the kitchen table and checked the clock on the stove. That thud had
been his bike going back into the storage room. It was 9:40. He shouldn’t be
home until 4pm. So many different reasons for him being home right after
leaving for work ran through my head…all trying to block out the reason I knew and
had been expecting.
In a
rare moment, I opened the door for him, and watched as he flew down the
stairs. We greeted each other briefly
before he asked me to guess his early arrival. I knew at that moment and
uttered the words, “you lost your job.” It was half a question, the other half
telling myself what I already knew. His response confirmed it. As I brought it up with my friends over the
next two weeks, I knew that we had been expecting it. When I brought it up that
morning, though, I was told that my love had been dreading it, not necessarily
expecting it. I knew the difference, but
still took solace in knowing that we weren’t entirely blind-sighted by it, like
my experience two months earlier.
My love’s
reaction was much more productive than my own. That first day, he applied to
nearly a dozen different jobs. Having
spent the last five years with additional training in his vocation but without
a long term position in it, he was used to applying for positions he would
love, like, tolerate, and even possibly not wake up every morning hating. Of course, having the additional training in
his vocation was also always a blow to his spirit, so the emotions in our house
were a bit escalated those first few days.
Almost
ten days later, I broke this news to a good friend, and her response was the
silver lining I had been grappling to cling to since the morning my love walked
in the door. “Oh, lucky you two! You get your honeymoon before the wedding.” That was a great way to look at it, and one I
definitely wish to believe. Of course, we’re both excited to travel after our
wedding, and enjoy a lifetime of exploring new places together. After the last
couple of years of struggling with regressive ideologies and constant
complaints from the over-paid, under-educated, and now “toy-poor” masses, we
both wanted some place new and fresh. Being jobless and stuck in Alberta during
this latest recession was not what either of us had planned for a honeymoon…
Instead,
I think a better way to look at our “Summer of Funemployment” – or at least the
weeks leading up to the wedding – was a crash course in pre-marriage
counselling. Most religious contracts have both partners go through classes and/or
one-one counselling with the individual performing the ceremony. These classes
can be as short as a weekend, or take place over a few weeks leading up to the
special event. Since we’re tying the knot in a legal rather than religious
ceremony, we don’t get an outsider advising us on how to build a strong
foundation for the rest of our lives, after the big day. Both of us view this
as a positive since neither of us can very much tolerate being told what to do,
and what someone else thinks is necessary for a healthy relationship. But, not
having to be anywhere every weekday for the last seven weeks before our big day
means that we will get to see much more of one another than we have over the
last four years. And, being unemployed means we both get to see the other in a
completely different light than we have ever witnessed before. Conflicts, breakdowns, emotional highs and
lows are nearly certain in this situation.
There
isn’t anyone else in this world that I could tolerate to see every day for most
of the day for weeks on end. I am most
definitely a homebody and have come to love hiding away in our luscious
basement suite, working on my health, my goals, and getting ready for my new
future these last two months. Alas, this second week of both of us being
homebodies and loving to hide away in our luscious basement suite has had its
trying moments. In almost four years, there is only one weekend where my love
and I were not together. For two introverts, that is truly amazing!
Luckily, we already have some
amazing tools to survive the next five weeks. This week, after a day or so of
irritability, my love suggested that I go for a run. My productivity meter
contradicted his suggestion, but we did have a reasonable discussion two hours
later about how to get more things knocked off my list. Then, I realized that I stopped writing for
my hour a day habit that I had started at the beginning of June once there were
two of us around the house in the morning. So, here I am – July 1 – and back to
taking care of my creative side first! Third, we both know that the house is
our personal sanctuary, but seeing other people who exist in the world is
important, too. My love took off for a coffee shop while I filmed my latest
vlog. And, I resolved to spend Sunday afternoon out, working on those vows I’ve
been meaning to write for two years. You see – we’re actually very good at
resolving the small conflicts that come up between us. And, well, I know it’s
mostly my inner conflicts that explode into our relationship, so I am excited
about the opportunity to explore all of that a little bit more with our “pre-wedding
staycation,” a term I feel is much more appropriate.
