Why pink, not unemployment, is my color

Unemployment is NOT a good color on me. Practical reasons aside (needing to pay rent, buy food, and pander to the UK's ridiculous notion of what a visa application should cost *cough* £550 *cough VOMIT*), it turns out that having no structure to my days-- no deadlines, no one relying on me to show up anywhere, no external expectations-- is a death sentence to my personal motivation, personal hygiene, and overall personal well-being. Unfortunately, watching my bank account dip lower and lower doesn't motivate me into getting off my ass, it paralyzes me into a fetal position in my bed, watching TV in the vain hope that producing as little movement as possible will result in needing to eat less, which will result in needing to buy less food, which will result in less damage to my sad, sad bank account. Even less fortunately, this bad logic isn't entirely unfounded, seeing as how faffing about in my pajamas all day whilst watching unlimited free TV online does in fact save on tube/bus fare and avoids shopping temptations.

This positive reinforcement (spending less money) of a very negative idea (becoming a house-bound, occasionally-showering, alcoholic sloth) does not help me in kicking my all-too-quickly-formed bad habits (drinking wine at 3 pm after sleeping til noon and watching 7 episodes of Cougar Town). I seem to lack the self-motivation to get out of this unflattering rut because even though I want to not be the girl that sleeps til noon, eats crisps for breakfast, and watches bad TV for 9 out of the 10 hours she's up, I somehow wake up every morning and am still her. So unfair. I can't seem to make myself change, so I grasp onto any shred of outside assistance that might break the pajama-sleep-wine cycle. I find myself actually agreeing to meeting with friends before 11 am (GASP) simply because I know it will at least force me to shower and slap some makeup on my despondent face. I schedule unhelpful meetings with recruitment consultants because hey-- at least they'll judge me if i show up inebriated at 1 pm, thus forcing me to have a normal lunch of a sandwich and juice. If I can't make myself do what's good for me, maybe someone else can. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go finish watching Piranha 3D and drinking my Kronenbourg 1664.

Sometimes you leave your gloves on the Night Bus...

...and end up crying about it for twenty minutes straight. And sometimes, about 7 minutes in, you realize you're not actually crying about your gloves. Sure, it's sad that you lost them-- after all they were your favorites, and they were pink, and they kept your hands nice and toasty in the damp London winter-- but it turns out you're not ACTUALLY expending all your emotional energy on weeping for a pair of hand accessories. It turns out the losing of the gloves was just what you needed to unleash that pent-up wave of sad you'd been storing since you found out your grandfather had a heart attack and your little doggie nephew passed away.

This is what happens to me fairly often-- traumatic things will occur in my life, I'll seemingly take them in stride, and then something that is for all intents and purposes unfortunate but inconsequential will happen and the DAM WILL BURST. It's happened so many times now that I almost expect it. Okay I don't *almost* expect it, I *do* expect it; in fact, I can very nearly predict when one of these dam bursts will happen-- it's just that I can't ever exactly predict *what* will make the dam burst. This time around I knew I was due for one, but I could've sworn it was going to be something dumb and boy-related that set it off; instead, it was dumb and accessory-related. Who knew? What I do know is that these dam bursts, while perhaps apparently insane, are not in fact unhealthy. They are what my emotional self needs in order to experience catharsis, deal with it, and then move (slowly) on. I'm not saying that after one of these expected yet unexpected floods I am totally and completely healed; there are usually still little cracks in my soul, and sometimes the cracks scar over into permanent marks. But through these natural disasters I somehow expel the biggest essence of the tragedy that my soul was experiencing, and when I come to the other side I am more able to cope with the aftermath. And then I pick myself up and go to Primark and buy some new gloves.