What "Orange Is The New Black" Has Taught Me

J

 Two months of unemployment and right on schedule I have landed in the depressed stage of mourning.  I am trying to look at the bright side - things have gotten better since middle school - obviously (see the picture above….).  Still, I’m no doctor, but it’s been three days since I washed my hair, the only clothes I have worn all week are sweat pants and I have watched a truly shocking amount of “Orange is the New Black.” Entire days worth of that show.  My husband, to his credit, hasn’t really complained about the fact that we have had the depression standard food fare - pizza, chinese and taco bell.  Then again he may just be a tad frightened by his obviously unbalanced, homeless looking wife who has spent her days watching a show that details how to engage in prison violence using a toothbrush and gum.

I decided that three days was enough.  I HAD to get up.  At the beginning of the summer I was doing so well- I cleaned out most of my life, throwing away nearly everything and anything that did not bring me joy.  I scrubbed my house top to bottom, I planted a garden and even started reading and writing every day.  But when all of my cathartic purging was done the fact that I LITERALLY had nothing else to do descended on me like a dark cloud and since I had LITERALLY nothing else to do, I went back to bed and I have been there for several days.  However, I am running out of “Orange is the New Black” episodes to watch so I have to get out of bed and do something.  And, honestly, I am not sure if a show devoted to life inside a women’s prison and the organized crime that brought the girls there is the best choice for me to binge watch while I am wallowing in depression about losing my job and plotting my fictitious revenge on my former boss.  Seriously, I should not know so much about shanking.  My mind is a dark place.  

So I decided I would do something that seemed to bring me so much joy before - throw shit out. I thought I had gone through EVERY part of my house, but there was one place that I didn’t touch.  The garage.  I hate organizing the garage.  It is hot, dusty and greasy and when I am done even my teeth feel gritty.  I absolutely hate it.  If I wasn’t depressed before, I was definitely depressed looking at the mess I decided to tackle.  But I kind of felt like this was a “last chance” for me.  If I didn’t do something, there was a real possibility that I was going to slip into a depression that lasted a lot longer than just three days.  So I grabbed some garbage bags and got ready to start throwing things away.  Thankfully my phone rang allowing me a few minutes to go sit in my bed and chat.  

It was not an offer of employment.  It was, instead, a well-meaning friend calling to say hi and offer the same sentiments that I have heard for several weeks, “It will all work out,” “It’s probably for the best!” “You were too good for that place,” and my personal favorite, “It’s because there is something better out there for you!”  I hung up the phone and was shocked by how incredibly pissed off I was.  It took me a few more procrastinating minutes to figure out why I was so upset. You see, those sentiments may be true, but then again they may be just a pile of bull shit.  I would like to think that I am so incredibly talented and wonderful that OF COURSE there is something better for me on the horizon, but the reality is that if I was really so indispensable, I would never have gotten axed in the first place.  If there is one thing that watching 30 straight hours of “Orange Is The New Black” has taught me, is that life is not fair.  And the universe doesn’t owe me a damn thing - least of all a job.  

I went back to the garage inspired by irritated fervor and mulled over the idea of what I am “owed” as I tossed half used spools of weed whacker rope and old gas cans into 55 gallon black trash bags.  And I have to admit that coming to terms with the idea that I am NOT the center of cosmos stings a bit.  Looking around at the bags and boxes of stuff that I have being housing, free of rent in my garage and on my dime, it is pretty obvious that the universe has already given more than my due.  I was born into a free country, I am alive and aware enough to BE depressed, to HAVE a job to lose and to wallow in my own personal pity party. And that is just the temporal stuff.  I have also been blessed with a mind that functions correctly, health, children that are as well-adjusted as they can be with me as their mother and a husband that kisses me when I have been crying and my nose is snotty and puts up with my crazy and then laughs good naturedly when I write about for the world to hear.  When it comes right down to it I have it all really - I mean in terms of the big cosmic stuff.  The job, well, that will come in time. And until it does, I will keep using this time to put my life in order and maybe find a Pinterest project to work on instead of sharpening my skills on how to turn a toothbrush into a deadly weapon.