The recession is 9% unemployment, 60% loss in savings and thousands of foreclosed homes. This is the recession:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/15/business/economy/15leonhardt.html?_r=1&ref=us
The recession looks painful and brutal, like a raw open wound.
But my recession is a more like a purple bruise, deeply felt but mainly superficial, not life-threatening just pride threatening.
My recession includes two jobs getting caught up and swept away in the mudslide of corporate investing. First there was the U of Chi gig cut after job freezes swept the frozen campus in February. Now there is the assistant job at the Christopher House, stalled with the IL State budget. Without government funding, nonprofits cease to run and I am left without my career path of choice. So I am surviving, I have a rented apartment, a somewhat steady limited weekly income and no reliance on savings or government aid (but some reliance still on my parents).
I survive but I do not thrive.
While others scrape by trying to salvage bits of a former life, I am readjusting my expectations of my future life. I am putting away fantasies of cross-continental trips abroad. I am shelving the idea of grad school at an East Coast school. I am forgetting about the possibility of a freelancing career. I am adjusting expectation not just for the next six months but for the rest of my life.
While the rest of the nation might have a pretty nasty scar after this all mighty recession, they will heal and live to tell grandchildren stories of foreclosures and lost 401K’s.
But I fear that I will heal with no visible sign of hurt, I will be left with no scar only the fear of a bigger bruise in the future. I am afraid that this recession has taught me to settle before I had time to rise up.
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I think you should take your considerable writing talents and write fiction for submission as a freelance writer. Yes, it may be lower on the esteem totem than journalism, but sometimes satisfaction comes from unexpected sources.
ReplyDeleteI also think a parallel to "death of a salesman" could be penned about a journalist who is left behind as the newspaper business turns to "infotainment"... a word incidentally, i detest..