In June 2025, I got what seems to have been my last real paycheck. I have done a bit of freelance work since, but that June check was the last one of significance. Since then, I have been a shop assistant at a small business, a dog walker, a content marketer (one small project), a freelance reporter (another small project), and a content strategist (part-time, short term). I also started a volunteer gig as a narrator at the local library for the blind, but that’s been frequently interrupted by a run of bad (and expensive) luck in the dental department.
My year-to-date income for 2026 is 2500 dollars.
Before I go any further, I should say that I’m okay. I got an inheritance when my mom died and it has saved me.
I stopped applying for jobs about six months ago. It wasn’t because I didn’t want work, no, it was because it felt so pointless. I have had one job interview in the last 14 months. The person I talked with told me they had thousands of applicants. I was amazed to have got the call though to be fair; it was a near perfect match with my skills. That was not enough. I did not make it past the initial screening round.
Even if I had made it, I was interviewing to be someone they would call when the hiring agency had work. They did government projects and were looking for someone who’d be ready to go when — if — their contract was renewed. I answered a lot of those “tell me about a time” questions in hopes I’d have the possibility of work sometime in the unspecified future.
When I learned how to cross country ski, I was struck by how many olds were on the trails. I’m a swimmer and a cyclist, two other pursuits that have lots of olds. My work as a tech writer was the same; as I settled into that occupation, I noticed a lot of older women in this role. I was psyched – it felt like something I could do for a long time. Which I guess was true. I had my first gig at Microsoft in 1998. My last paycheck came indirectly from T-Mobile in 2025. That’s almost 30 years. A good career.
Then AI ate my job and ghost jobs became a thing and maybe ageism caught up with me and I don’t know. The result is that I’ve gone more than a year without consistent work or income.
For the first six months or so, I thought things would turn around. I made it through two big recessions – the dot com burst and the financial collapse in 2007. COVID hit me not at all, go figure; I had a good job the whole time. But I don’t think the market will recover in time for me to go back to work. I’m willing to be surprised, but I think I’m probably done.
I’ve spent the last year and change trying to figure out what to do next.
Last year I tried to sell a book based on CANNED, my podcast about getting fired, but I could not land an agent. I decided not to self publish not because I think it’s a bad idea, but because the numbers don’t make sense for me. I don’t mind investing the time, but I don’t want to put in money that I won’t get back.
For a while I considered getting back into the studio and making art, but every time I go into my basement I confront two decades worth of paintings and collages and other visual things. I do not need more creations cluttering up the joint. It’s paralyzing. I have directed that same energy into my garden – which will stay with the house when I sell it and plus, I grow a fair bit of food. It’s good to make stuff you can eat. I have come to enjoy the garden tremendously but it doesn’t drive me.
My appetite for travel is severely diminished. There are two reasons for this. The first is my aging companion, Harley the Dog. For a small dog he has a lot of big feelings. There are only a few places I’m comfortable leaving him for an overnight or two. He’s got some health issues and requires a special diet, too. I’ve flown with him once and he did okay but I don’t want to put him through that again. If he can’t come along, I need someone to stay in my home with him – and honestly, if he can’t come along, I don’t want to go.
I’ve also developed a lot of ambivalence about participating in an activity that has such a negative effect on our planet and its people. This is my pandemic scar; I can’t unsee how much our climate improved when we stopped traveling for that year. I loved to travel and it’s probably easier for me, a person who has done a fair bit of it, to opt out. And also, the notion of jetting off to Indonesia for ten days just doesn’t call me like it used to. I might feel differently after Harley moves on to his next existence, but I might not, too.
For the longest time I thought that when this day came, I would pull up stakes and move to Europe. I had residency through marriage but getting divorced put an end to that plan. I am resourceful and tenacious, and should I want to move to the continent I could research getting my residency restored, but the idea doesn’t hold the luster it had while I was married. I got to fulfill my fantasy of living and working abroad – how great is that? – but the idea of doing it on my own has zero appeal.
Here I am. Unemployed, single, wanderlust no longer lusting, creative spark no long lighting fires. Anchored by my sweet old dog but not mad about it. Secure enough, thank god, to not be freaking out but not so well off that I’m buying a beach house.
I’m fully aware of the first world problems nature of this, how privileged I am. And also, what a weird situation.
I’ve spent a year in this directionless state, trying to figure out what I want to do, and getting shot down whenever I go after something. New job or long term gig? No. Book deal? No. Some third thing? No.
I think I finally have a plan: Go back to school.
There is no downside. I have rolled this idea around in my brain for months now, and I can find absolutely nothing to discourage me. Check it out.
- It’s convenient. The community college campus is about four miles from my house. It’s an easy bike ride or a ten-minute drive.
- It’s cheap. At my advanced age, I qualify for a tuition waiver – it’s five bucks a class. It’s space available only and I don’t get credit, but should I decide to continue, I already have a bachelor’s degree and won’t need those credits, anyway.
- There are zero stakes. None. I fail math? So what? My dream job appears and I drop out to go do that? So what? I get three weeks in and decide I made a bad choice and don’t want to continue? So what?
- It’s part time. I benefit from a little bit of structure in my world, but I don’t like being eaten alive by a schedule. I can take one or two classes and call it good.
- It’s good for me. I can learn some stuff and get my brain firing in new ways. I can meet new people. I can be the weird old at the back of the room.
- The colllege mascot is the otter. Enough said.
My application has been processed; I need to register for classes. I’m skipping summer school but in the fall, I hope to start the astronomy and physics track at South Seattle Community College. I chose astronomy and physics because my focus had to be something new and it had to be hard. I considered history for a hot minute, but I’m mad enough about the state of things; studying history wouldn’t help.
I’ve been at loose ends for long enough. Hurling myself at the mysteries of the universe feels as good a solution as any.
