Adventures of Unemployment

April 22, 2011
My name is Charis Wallace. Yes, Charis. The "h" is silent. It is like Paris but with a "c." If I had a dollar for every time I had to say that in the past 26 years I would never need to be employed again.
I am as enagmatic as my name and I am starting this little journal/memoir to spin a devastating change to my life in to something. What exactly? I don't know.
It is 2011 and I have grown up knowing that employment is a good and necessary thing to have ... to well ... state the obvious, live. I have been fortunate to work in a number of different vocations in this life and this is how I define employment. I do something someone wants me to do and they pay me. Simple.
So, I have been being paid for the past 14 years to do various tasks that people and companies have paid me to do. I delivered newspapers, babysat, cashiered at a grocery store, stocked grocery stores, sauteed vegetables in a Yacht Club kitchen, waited tables, tended bar, sold condoms, took photos of condoms for a Web site, sold student loans, Answered phones, stuffed tubes with bananas, ordered takeout for blue men, sold tickets for blue men, marketed Medicare and more. I learned at a young age that employment gave me money and that gave me freedom. I was never imprisoned, but for some reason I grew up having a thirst for freedom and independence so I always had this thing we call employment. Doing things-doing anything and being paid money-money. Everyone needs it. Everyone wants it. Yet I hate it!
With all the money I have "earned," with the myriad of jobs I have done, I can't say too much positive about my financial stablility. One would think that an individual who worked so much from such a young age would have learned how to manage money and balance a friggin check book. That is not the case for this newly unemployed twenty something girl. My credit sucks, my debt is mountainous and a savings account doesn't exist. Not even a piggy bank. Ooops. I must have been absent the day they taught money management in high school.
I don't want to dwell on where the money went cause I don't even want to think about it. Rent, bills, college, Way too many clothes. That will do it. Okay, I am getting off track. So, back to employment and my definition and my life. In sum, I have been doing THINGS for OTHER people for the majority of my life. What makes me happy? What do I like? What do I want to do?
Don't worry, this isn't going to turn in to some existentialistic search for self. Just making a point. I have never put myself or my wants first. So I lost my job 2 days ago. By the way, I love how they say you "lost," your job, like it's next to that twenty in your winter coat pocket and you will surprisingly find it next December. Anyways, I have no job, we'll get in to that later.