This Last Day Feels Different

Thought about this going to bed last night.

This is the time of year of The Last Day Of School.  I don't know when it usually is where you live, but for most of my life here, it ends around early June.  I remember The Last Day Of School as the most joyous day of the year for me.  There was no homework, no need to get up in the morning, no obligations after that day.  So every time I heard that bell for the last time on The Last Day Of School, I tore out of class like I was escaping prison.  Because I was.  I was free -- free to do what I want (or not), whenever I wanted -- well, until the fall, of course.  Summer still means something special to me.  I complain about how hot it is, but back then, it was my time to complain, or to enjoy at my leisure, free from the behest of anyone.

But, of course, that was my childhood.  Today is The Last Day Of Work for me.  And it breaks an impressive string for me.  Before this job was the one the floor above.  Before that I worked for Wells Fargo for a couple weeks, then before that was testing season and I latched onto job after job there.  then before that I was back at the health insurance company.

If I get the chronology right, and excepting that have been a couple weeks' furlough here and there, I have been continuously working since, oh, the late summer of 2016.  I have had enough work that I have not needed to go on unemployment since then, at least.  As I've said before, this is something I am proud of.  In fact, I consider it to be progress.

But unless lightning strikes, that ends after today.  Right now, I have no jobs lined up.  Health insurance company doesn't want me anymore.  Testing season is over; I have asked if there is work over the summer, and they have not gotten back to me.  And I should blog post about this soon, but nothing I've applied for over the Internet has gotten back to me either.

So, um, I'm out on my own.  And I am stuck as fuck.  I can't go back on the dole because then my parents will find out I am unemployed, and the shit I will take for that will break me.  All signs point to me going back to school, but ... ugh.  I may have no choice, but how ironic is it that the main joy of my childhood was not going to school in the summer, and now, as an adult, going to school in the summer may serve as my salvation?

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I am not motivated to go to work, to be honest.  There are two tasks I could do, and then, well, I don't know what else there is to do.  I swear there is enough work for me to stick around, but they say there isn't.  They treat me real well there, this department, and I know they like me.  But I've got to admit I feel really bitter about this.  I want to find a place where I can stick.  I want to find a place that needs me, and wants me.  For three seasons I have been hoping that it's been this place, but, well, it's not.  And frankly, after I walk out that door at the end of work today, I don't know if they'll invite me back.

I am lost and scared, y'all.  I really, really am.  Being let loose for the summer -- this summer -- goddamn frightens me.  How fucking ironic is that?