Unemployment

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. ~Mark Twain

I have quit my job.  In a few weeks, my address will change to Nowhere and Everywhere as I embark on a career with an income of $0.00/year.  Basically, I'm homeless and unemployed.  Boy, I'm sure glad I shelled out for a college education!

I'm really leaving.  Gasp!

I know you all have long since come to grips with this rather obvious fact, but I'm here to tell you that it's a whole different animal when it's your own life.  Does everyone feel like this? Possibly following your life's Call is inevitably a mix of panic/elation/seizure-like symptoms.  At least once a day it occurs to me that I'm moving to Nicaragua soon and it's a complete toss-up whether I want to jump up and down or throw up everywhere.

What if I fail at this? What if everyone's wrong and it turns out that I have no capacity to speak and understand Spanish? What if it turns out that I really don't like people?  What if I can't readjust to American culture?  What if I'm never home anywhere?  This is not an attempt to solicit sympathy or praise, this is just what it's like. 

I hear these songs on Christian radio that make me crazy, talking about how you have nothing to lose, just follow God and your life will be so much better.  What horse shit.  Your life will not be better; it will be wrecked.  "I have lost all things," says Paul to the Philippian Church.  If you claim allegiance to the Almighty, and you haven't also lost everything, then I dare to posit the idea that perhaps you aren't doing it right.  This is essential.

And so very difficult, as it turns out.  Paul lists his credentials, his gains, not to show off, but I rather think he's similarly trying to deal with the enormous voluntary loss of everything he's been taught to believe is important.

It's so unusual that the feeling Paul inspires in me is comfort; generally, it's more akin to rage.  But these are strange times, and I'll take what I can get!  I may be unhoused and unemployed but thanks to people like Paul, I know that I am not un-ique.  Maybe, just maybe, this is a normal way to feel.

I could have a career, I could be rich, I could be famous at any number of things - I'm really quite something!  I don't care about any of that.  It's just the usual garbage.  Failure or not, success or not, pee-my-pants-terror or not - living a life of service is what I choose to do.  I, in a dingy made of faith, am sailing out of the safe harbor to ports unknown!

No wonder I feel so seasick.