Unemployment

Well, here I sit in my fifth week of unemployment. It still hasn't hit me that I don't have a job next year because I am used to having the summers off. And thankfully, our insurance will last through the end of August and I am able to draw unemployment. But it is slowly starting to become a reality to me that I will not have a job come September.

I started working when I was fifteen at Family Restaurant in Lafayette, TN and in my entire life I have only been unemployed five times. The first time I was working at a factory in Lafayette, TN called Carter Automotive. I had worked there nine months and my first day on the job, the plant manager told us the plant would be closing within a year. That was my first experience in being laid off. I think I was 22. I immediately found a job at Toshiba in Lebanon, TN, so technically I was only unemployed for a week.

I worked all through college and during my the beginning of my student teaching. I finally had to quit Toshiba. It was too much. I was teaching 7 - 8 hours during the day, working 8 - 12 hours a night, and trying to keep up with all my school work. I moved back in with my parents (for the third time since I had moved out) and finished school. I was 32.

I was unemployed for about two months before I started working at Farrar & Holliman Law Office and then five months later I got a job teaching in the Lebanon Special School District at Byars Dowdy Elementary. During that period of my life, I was actually working three jobs. I taught during the day, worked at Victoria's Secret during the weekend and some weeknights, and cleaned the law office every Friday night.

Around 2004, I met Martin and fell in love and when we decided to get married we had a big decision to make. He lived in Oregon and I lived in Tennessee. Who was going to move? He had Natalie, who had just turned nine. There was no way I could ask him to leave his daughter, so I decided to move to Oregon. I resigned from my teaching position in 2005 and came to Oregon jobless. I was 32.

I didn't work at all for the first three months I was in Oregon and I didn't get a teaching job the first year. I worked a few odd jobs: TJ Maxx, Lexus of Portland, and even tried my hand at being a real estate agent in North Portland. Throughout it all, I missed teaching. Thankfully, I got a call for interviews with the Beaverton School District and was hired at West TV Elementary.

During the end of my first year at West TV, Martin got a job offer in Cottage Grove, OR to work with a couple of his law school friends. We decided to make the move and I resigned from my teaching job in 2007. I was 34. About three weeks after we moved, I got an interview with 4J Eugene School District and was hired at Meadowlark/Buena Vista. I taught there for four years and was laid off June 17, 2011. So here I am, unemployed at 38.

I am hoping that this bought of joblessness is also short lived, but it is kind of scary. This time is different because of the economy and the amount of people who are unemployed at this time. But, I am hopeful and thinking positively that I will find the job that I am meant for. If not, maybe I am meant to work in a different field for a while. I don't know. I am one who believes that everything happens for a reason and that what is meant to be, will be. I am also a very impatient person, so I hope that whatever is meant to be happens soon!