On layoffs & new routines

I'm going through all the motions but what I'm really doing is waiting

Elena Lukina

In the aftermath of being laid off, order has been a fickle creature. These days, bedtime is ruled not by the punctual arrival of nightfall but by the satiation of some arbitrary curiosity. Yesterday I stayed up until 3am rewatching The Theory of Everything, wondering how someone could ever reconcile a life so extraordinary with a world so awful. Afterwards, I spent the rest of the night awake, blinking against the darkness, chanting the words, “you never think it’ll happen to you”. I met dawn with a protracted yawn and willed my heavy eyelids to shut under the warm glow of sunrise. Yet another night where order had fallen to the wayside.

I’m starting to realize that the rigid rungs of corporate deadlines and deliverables were about the only things rearing structure to the otherwise floating hours of my day. Rather than being an inherently organized person, I’m just good at playing the game. My penchant towards organization came as a byproduct of my penchant to perform, a collateral perk of sorts.

I miss it now, the stability of deadlines, project deliverables, and scheduled meetings.

—

The pitfalls of building a proper routine is having too many things you want to do, too many alleys you want to explore. For the first time in a long time, without the regimental timetables of parental pressures, college deadlines and project deliverables to rein my hours, there is ample room for curious thoughts and loosely held intentions to take charge. It is a power I do not yet know how to properly wield.

From new diets and workout programs to culinary whims and experimental skincare regimes, I’m jumping from one unfinished idea to the next like a chess knight gone rogue. There’s something to be said about living life without a scorecard. Where you’re committed not to winning the checkmate, delivering the project, or scoring the promotion but simply shaking hands with the pieces and exploring the board with all it has to offer. I’m attempting intermittent fasting now, maybe a circuitous way to incorporate some more structure to my day? All I know is that I’m perpetually hungry.

It’s a liberating kind of hunger though.

There’s also a lot of daydreaming, fantasizing about new beginnings.

Start-up or big tech? Hybrid or remote? LA? San Francisco? New York? Hide out in Costa Rica for a year? Or should I say screw it and chase my life-long dream of writing? It’s form vs. function vs. stability vs. passion. My thoughts wander, tangle, then ultimately dissolve. The mind can be a fickle thing. Case in point, I have about 50 open tabs right now. 50 open job postings, ripe for submission. Majority are prayers, delusions if you must. Completely out-of reach for me qualification-wise, but the dreamer inside forbids me from clicking x.

I know, I’m getting ahead of myself. I’m sure in another month or so, with enough rejections, I’ll wake up soon. It’s just that time feels so urgent now. I’m suddenly aware of just how old I am, nearing the point where I can no longer use my age as an excuse. There’s an overwhelming urge to hit the ground running, to want to make this shaky moment mean something other than what it seems and so I’m searching for something, anything (hope? purpose? validation?), to quiet the voice that beckons: What did you make of this layoff? What do you have to show for it?

The days don’t feel long enough.

The other thing is, maybe busying myself with so many thoughts and tasks is a way to distract from having to focus on the absolute torture of the wait. The function of all this labor is distraction.

There’s nothing quite like job hunting to remind you of the callous indifference of the world. I’m entering into what I presume to be an arduous 3 month enterprise to sell myself, into a season of sitting restlessly and wandering aimlessly. It’s a sorta sisyphean pursuit.

The initial application, the automated “thank you for applying!” email, the anticipation, the nervous butterflies.

The flash of hope. The pregnant pause.

The radio silence.

Brush. Floss. Rinse. Repeat.

I’m going through all the motions but what I’m really doing is waiting.

I’m trying to hold my breath and not panic my way through the ragged textures of this moment but at the end of the day, it’s all a numbers game. It’s you over someone else. Someone else over you. This kind of hobbessian line of thinking can be so insidious. Some days go better than others.

Long walks have provided a lot of comfort.

—

In college, we learned about the theory of r-selection, species that produce a higher number of offspring or progenies but offer less parental care. Dandelions happen to be exemplary r-strategists, producing up to 3000 seeds at once. Every spring, when a good stiff breeze comes around, these seeds are blown into the air, going every which way. The dandelion’s strategy is to maximize the # of blind chances it has for continuing its genetic line, not to carefully lot every germination. These are creatures of fidelity. In a way job hunting is no different, I’m blindly sending out app after app, holding onto faith that a few seeds out of thousands will blow back in my direction.

I have to say though, hinging all your chances of reproductive survival on temperamental wind patterns is somewhat of a gutsy move. The pragmatist in me wants to call it absurd. The dandelions call it strategy. In the spirit of sympathetic resonance, I’ll call it doing the best you can. At the end of the day, I suppose that’s how every routine starts though, no? A brazen charge to commit coupled with shameless repetition. After all, this reproductive routine makes an appearance every year. Every spring, without fail, paying no mind to wind speeds or soil fertility, the dandelion boldly ventures forward, 3000 seeds at once.

So what to do in the meantime? I guess there’s no other way around it than to blister forward, to straighten out my spine and chisel out the contours of my new routine, one exploratory stalemate, one submitted application and one nervous interview at a time. To recognize that while not everything in this new routine will stick (just like not every app will land), the more important thing is to commit to the day, savor the experimental detours and trust in the form that’ll emerge. To hold onto enough faith that when the breeze comes, I’ll be ready.

For what it’s worth, it works. Every summer, every crack in every sidewalk has a dandelion growing out of it.