D’you hear about Fred?
He’s unemployed,
They threw him away like a useless toy
He went down the drain after twenty long years
No warning, no pension,
Nobody’s tears
And I can’t believe that anyone would
Wanna do such a terrible thing,
But—

Why should I care?

Oingo Boingo
“Nothing Bad Ever Happens to Me”

I’ve been let go from my job. Not for cause, according to the people in charge of such things. Although to be honest, you really cannot trust what a representative of one’s employer says about your performance on your way out the door. Honesty can be a real potential liability in these sorts of cases. But I think I believe them when they say that my dismissal is solely due to the downturn in the economy and the concomitant drop in sales across the industry, ourselves included. So there’s that. I guess.

Thirty two years. Thirty. Two. I worked there for longer than I had been alive at the point when I started working there.

The end result? A pretty decent 401k, a rather modest severance package and a crawling, ever-present feeling of impending doom. Also the opportunity to have worked in a really interesting field, with and for people I truly respect and care about. So it’s not all bad. I suppose I’d rather lose a job of thirty two years that I loved than lose one of that kind of duration that I hated.

I was lucky. Still am. I’m buttery-soft with the privilege I have been slathered with since the day I was born. I have a loving partner with a good job. I have friends. I am in good health despite everything I have gone through medically over the years.

None of this helps.

What am I supposed to put on a résumé? “Previous work history: did absolutely everything at one time or another at a single business for three decades, while amassing a set of very specific skills that are completely undocumented and that, in aggregate, will work absolutely nowhere else. So give me a job.”

At age 58. With a 36-year-old Bachelor of Arts, back problems, arthritis, diabetes, a pacemaker and a rented kidney.

I.
Am.
Fucked.

I can’t leave Margaret as the sole provider. It’s not fair to her, nor is it good for us. My salary amounted to about forty percent of our household income. That’s a big gap to work around. I’m guessing that, over time, such an arrangement would be detrimental to our relationship, which is the only thing I really have going for me and which I will not risk for anything.

And anyway, I have real trouble imagining myself as a stay-at-home Cat Dad, meeting up with the boys at the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf for chai lattes, taking up yoga and roaming the aisles of QFC in full Lulu Lemon regalia.

I have never felt so unmoored in my life. Not even when my father, my last living parent, died. Not even when my childhood domicile and family homestead was sold. Maybe that means I’m selfish and narcissistic; I’m not sure. But apparently, my job was a huge part of my identity, my self-image. I don’t think I’d realized that before.

And despite the very real financial challenges facing my company and our industry, my demon brain will not let me accept the possibility that this isn’t my fault. It tells me that, on the contrary, I deserve to be fired, that is in fact long overdue.

That this is just my big, fat, lazy, undeserving slacker GenX chickens coming home to roost.

We just met with our financial advisor. Our overall status is actually pretty good. Even if I am unable to find work, my unemployment will last us until right around the time I can begin drawing modest amounts off of my retirement accounts without penalty. This all assumes that Margaret continues to work right up to retirement age. This is far from ideal, but it is certainly better than, say, losing the house and ending up living under a bridge like common trolls.

I’ve used this analogy a lot recently but, not to get all Rick and Morty about it, no one is special. Or rather, everyone is special. And when everyone is special, no one is special. And therefore—to paraphrase the late great David Rakoff—the only sane response to a lachrymose wail of “why me???” is, “well, why not you?”

Who am I to question my misfortune? If my trials and tribulations aren’t deserved, what would that mean about my triumphs?

I never lose sight of my own good fortune, all accidents of my birthplace, my ethnicity, the efforts and accomplishments of my predecessors. By comparison to the vast, teeming mass of humanity clinging to this rock, I live a life of surfeit and good providence that would probably make my ancestors a trifle ill.

I.
Am.
Lucked.

And yet—

None of this helps.

We ride on towards
A future that’s fate,
And the gravity is great,
But we carry our weight.

Lydia Burrell
“Carry Our Weight”