Adventures in Unemployment

It has been a while since I posted anything here and a lot has changed. For one thing, I am now officially unemployed, and frankly, worried. The company I owned with my ex-husband has, to use an appropriate cliche, gone down the tubes. The last several weeks have been tied up with closing things down, separating assets -- again! It's like getting divorced a second time from the same man. Now, I find myself wondering how I'm going to pay the bills.

Think I mentioned a few posts back that I had taken on a sales territory for a blouse manufacturer. So far, I am in the red with that endeavor. I've sold some blouses but my travel expenses have far outpaced any commissions I have been paid, and the blouses have simply stopped selling. I have some personal items I want to sell that might bring in some fast cash, but after that, I'm pretty much out of ideas. This is keeping me up nights, obviously. I guess I should have seen it coming. Well, I DID see it coming, but it's like having a someone you love get a terminal disease. You know they will die but it still hurts when it finally happens.

I have actually been preparing financially for this for a year. The real reason for selling the Buffalo Wallow was to get out of debt. I knew it was the most valuable thing, by far, that I owned, and once it sold I could pay off everything. So, I have no bills, other than those associated with homeownership of the New Mexico house: taxes, insurance, utilities, etc. But now I find myself living in an area where there is 29% unemployment, I am a 59-year old woman who is definitely NOT bilingual, an understood requirement for employment in this area. So the dilemma is what to do. I'm several years away from qualifying for Social Security, and oh yes, there's my exorbitant, and I might add crappy, health insurance premium, which is automatically deducted from my checking account each month. I'm OK for now. If I'm really stingy with money, I can last a while. Certainly not for the four years until Social Security becomes an option, but for a while.

My thoughts are to somehow make my skills as a writer pay off -- now, when I really need them to. I've done the book review thing. I enjoyed it but earned somewhere around .0000003 cents an hour -- maybe. Freelancing has never earned much for me, but I'm looking into ways to possibly make it pay better. I open to anything.

The company has for the last several years allowed me to procrastinate about writing, but that option has just closed. I'm for sale. I am thinking about a website, maybe get some editorial work. I'm pretty good at editing -- the "big picture" kind of editing. I can read something and tell when it isn't working. I can even often tell how to fix what isn't working. That should be worth something to another writer, although maybe not as much as before this self-publishing craze that is gaining momentum. I've done a little bit of research, put out feelers to people who are making a living at freelance editing. I do have some ideas.

And of course, there's the endlessly unfinished novel. We have a long-planned, unavoidable road trip to make this next week. The trip will end with the final "board meeting" in Texas of the company. After that, I will be disassociated from it forever.

Many years ago, when I was going through one of many bouts of marital troubles, I ran home to my parents for a weekend. My husband at the time and I were thinking about separating, which in hindsight we probably should have done for good. I don't remember much about that weekend except for my mother telling me that I needed to "find my purpose." This was long before I had become a published writer; I had only aspirations at that time. Her words stuck then and they seem especially appropriate to me once again. As soon as we are back from this trip, it's past time for me to "find my purpose," to become productive again. There has been a lot of joy in life lost over the last ten or so months. I am hoping to also "find the joy" that has been lacking.

Onward ....