About Being Unemployed

By Lynnette Acosta

It has been now a couple of weeks since I left my job to join the Peace Corps. Max and I have been busy handling the move from DC to FL and, at the same time, visiting with all the family and friends who want to see us before we leave to Honduras. While moving, unpacking, visiting I think about this big change and trying to make sense of what it means. After all I had never experienced being unemployed before.

The Good
Of course there is the obvious benefit to being unemployed: Time. I’ve had time to go to the beach three days in a row, to spent long hours talking to family and friends, to read and write, to take naps, to work on projects around the house, to cook and go to the gym. This is a big deal to me, I really enjoy doing these things but when I worked I was too busy or too tired to do most of them. I was really bad at keeping a good balance, spending most of my time and energy at work or thinking about it. My life definitely feels more balanced now.

To give you an idea of how wonderful it is, this is how I spent my day yesterday:

Woke up at 10am or so and spent the next hour and a half in bed with Max (don’t worry, I won’t give more details). Took a long shower and made brunch. Not a quick instant oatmeal in front of the computer like I used to eat in the mornings but scrambled eggs with toast, chocolate milk, sausage, and fruit. We ate our brunch in the beautiful porch of the house we’re living overlooking the lake. Blue jays, herons, mocking birds, ducks, and pelicans giving us the gift of their beautiful dance and melody.

After brunch we’re ready to start working. The list of things to do is long, but interesting. We spend a big portion of the day mounting cabinets in the lake house, setting up the computer and internet, setting up the stereo, and growing the pile of sell items for our garage sale. By the end of the afternoon we are feeling good of how much we’ve accomplished.

Next is Yoga. We join Max’s mom and brother to a local yoga class. It is power yoga and we put a good sweat, but the best part is the friendly people in the class. They all introduce themselves and treat us like they’ve know us forever. After Yoga we meet with some friends in the local pub for dinner and drinks.

Then is back home, where we get ready for bed, watched the news and late night television. We both love Conan O’Brien.

The Bad
There is also bad to being unemployed. I now have to watch what I spend. Is weird how difficult it can be to get out of the habit of spending all the time, and to realize how good I was at that. I wasn’t able to go shopping for sandals while I was in Puerto Rico last week like I usually like to. Or couldn’t buy the beautiful hand made jewelry that a local artisan offered. We are being careful with our spending, we want to make sure we leave savings in case an emergency arises during our Peace Corps service.

No more paying almost $200 to get my hair cut and highlighted. Instead I cut it short (my sister in law gave me a beautiful but practical hair cut) and dyed dark. We used a pharmacy hair color instead of the fancy salon ones so I can keep dying my hair the same color even if I have a hard time finding a stylist in Honduras (or the money to pay them). My hair is no longer the kind I’d wear to a club but I think it looks good.

I worried about being bored if I wasn’t working but this hasn’t happened so far. I’ve had so much to do and such a long list of ideas on how to spend my free time. Now I worry about not having enough time to do it all in the 4 weeks of unemployment ahead.

The Ugly
The only thing that worries me is healthcare. Since we’re both unemployed we don’t have health insurance. We are both healthy and go months without seeing a doctor so it shouldn’t be a problem but I still worry about an emergency. I just found out that Zyrtec (the medication I take for allergies) costs over $2 a piece. That is just crazy.

This has had me thinking about all the people without healthcare in the US. There’s whole families that can not afford health insurance. How do they pay for medical treatment? How do they care for their kids. This really puts things in perspective for me.

The End
In all fairness being unemployed to me is more like an extended vacation, nothing like real unemployment. I am lucky to have a house to live in, savings and generous family and friends that would help if anything bad happened. For me being unemployed is good. But I can not help but to think about the people out there that are not as lucky. It really can be a tough world out there.