I’m impressed with myself on how well I have been managing the past weeks. I no longer have a job which is the most unexpected news of 2023, as unexpected as the breakdown of the global pandemic back in 2020. We might have forgotten that, but all of us are still dealing with the trauma of covid pandemic, 1.5 years of lockdown, the war in Ukraine, and global inflation. And then, bang, the year I thought I was going to make it, I failed again. At least I didn’t have to wait until December to know.
I am not married, I don’t have kids, I didn’t follow a traditional path, and at the end of it, I’m also unemployed. How does society see a woman like me? A total waste of my life. I am not even joking, by now, I should be married, with a mortgage and a full-time job, making plans for the future instead of living in a rented flat made of boxes, with no job and alone. Being a scientist is all I know, what I have worked for my entire life and I had to come to terms with the fact that this might be no more. I feel like, by this point, I made so many plans and vision boards and all failed, so I’m no longer surprised that everything is going into trash again. I put together my feeling on how the news of not having a job made me feel in a medium article.
I thought I had a break from my travelling and fragmented life, but that isn’t going to happen this year either.
The shitshow of my life
Well, as I don’t have a permanent job anymore, it meant that I couldn’t renew the lease of my flat. I sold all my stuff, my bike, TV, all the furniture in the living room and I will have to sell my car too at some point. I put into the bin most of my memories, all of my diaries, my thoughts, my memories, my entire adult life. Last Friday, when I realised I lost the scarf my sister gave to me as a Christmas present, I started crying. It was the first time I stopped to think and became aware of the reality: I was erased of all my memories, my entire adult life in the recycling bin. I had to come to terms with the fact that they were only material stuff, I had to disassociate myself emotionally from those items, notebooks, and clothes that belonged to me at some point in time. At 32, I might have to go back and live with my parents, how horrible that sound? Terrible!
I no longer have a permanent contract of employment. That was something I took for granted. The very welcoming capitalistic society that the generation before left us to deal with, created this idea that only a permanent contract gives you dignity and status as an employee so I guess I have to roll with it. Sorry to break it down to you, but this is all capitalism is all about. They gaslight you with the idea of having a mortgage as an investment, buying stuff on contract, but all you have is debt. So you are forced to work and stay in jobs that kill your soul because there’s the mortgage to pay, the lease of the car, and the contract to buy a 1000$ iPhone.
I thought I had it all, the life of my dream, the job of my dream, and then I realised that this meant nothing. I am here in a flat made of carton boxes, I saved the few memories and things I didn’t want to put into the bin, they are mine, they belong to me. And in all of this, in one of the most shocking and unsettling moments of my life, I realised that I didn’t lose a job, that who cares if I don’t have the marriage, the mortgage, the car, and all sorts of shit. I have the most important thing of all: freedom. We live in the 2.0 generation where a few things are more important than money and status: time, experience, and being debt-free. And sorry not sorry for the unpopular opinion but this is worth gold!
I’m 32 and I have my entire life ahead of me, I’m still very young and it’s okay to make mistakes and keep experimenting and trying new experiences. When I reached 30, I thought that was the age of settling, that the time for fun and uni life was gone and I had to act seriously to be taken seriously (by society). See above what act serious means, the mortgage, kids, marriage and bla, bla, bla. No, I don’t have to. I can still do a cracking job, smash business plans and crack science from whatever I want because my knowledge and skill aren’t fixed in time and space, I am the person that hold the skills and knowledge, they don’t depend on the place. Einstein won the Nobel prize for the relativity theory, we live in a four-dimensional world and the time-space relationship is fluid. I take that, my ability to do a job is fluid too, the way I want to live my life is versatile too and if you (generally speaking) don’t get that because you’re stuck to the past century with your mentality, then it ain’t my F business. I keep evolving, manifesting, and bye-bye while you are stuck.
I will resume my traveling life shortly and I won’t stop. #lifeisajourney forever, You all, take care.
Teresa Ambrosio Consulting 