The Cycle

Mr. Clark just stormed out of the house, after another one of our “still out of work” fights. It’s not the first one we’ve had, and I’m sure, as long as Mr. Clark’s unemployment continues, it won’t be the last.

Next week will be one year since Mr. Clark was laid off, and what a long, sad, tiring, lesson-filled year it has been. There have been some good things come of it – readjustment of our priorities, paring down our needs, and some nice time spent together, after years of Mr. Clark mostly being on the road.

And, there have been some really bad things come of it, too. Mr. Clark’s efforts to find work have netted only a few interviews, and some temporary contract work. His profession, construction software, is pretty much dead right now. Most of his clients are doing poorly. Their businesses have closed and many of them, like Mr. Clark, are just trying to piece together enough work to pay the bills until folks start building again.

No one seems to know when this recession will end, but a lot of the time it feels like it won’t be soon enough for Mr. Clark and me. And, we’re not alone. According to recent newspaper articles, foreclosures in Barrow County are up 49% from the first half of last year, meaning nearly 1,000 homes have been lost. Nationally, 1 in 8 mortgage holders are behind on their payments.

Unemployment claims are up, too – 126-percent locally, this April, compared to last. The number of people on unemployment who have used up their 52 weeks of benefits is rising quickly. And, while some experts predict an end to the recession as soon as late this summer, those same experts are predicting unemployment will stay high well into 2010.

So, what does this mean for Mr. Clark and me?

It means we continue to scrap around for money and hope for the best, while cycling through what appears to be the unemployed version of Elisabeth Kubler-Ross’ “Five Stages of Grief and Loss,” (from her book On Death and Dying.)

The stages are: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. Mr. Clark and I are on about our fifth trip around the cycle.

Denial – that’s where you can’t believe you’ve lost something you hold dear, such as your job with decent pay and benefits. The head can’t stop spinning, while all the time you tell yourself, “This is only temporary…Something else will turn up,” as the phone sits quiet, and the bills mount up…

Next comes anger – my personal favorite. This is where you are filled with rage about what has happened, and are consumed with thoughts about “how unfair it is.” This is when nasty things get said, and deep wounds are inflicted on the already fragile and hurting egos involved.

Bargaining is a nice break from all the negativity of anger and denial, as it is the time when the job search picks up again. “If I re-work the resume, and search a few more job boards, maybe I’ll get an interview…If I call X, Y or Z back, maybe something will have changed and then I can have my old life back….”

Then, when those efforts net little or no result, depression sets in. Experts say you have to move through depression in order for healing to begin. But, sometimes “moving through” takes what feels like a very long time. Some glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel would help, but there is none. The tunnel is long and dark and those unemployment statistics continue, ever bleaker, as your own personal home foreclosure becomes a not too distant reality…

There’s only so long you can wallow in those depths, and then you have to crawl back out. That’s the acceptance stage. For me, that means putting my anger and depression aside, and stop bargaining with the universe for something more “fair.” It means we are where we are, for whatever reason, and all the fussing, fretting and fighting won’t do anything but make things worse.

Mr. Clark may never have as good a job as he used to have – ever again. And, we may never live as well as we used to live – ever again. But, that’s no reason to become horrible people. Maybe the light at the end of our particular tunnel is that a lot of things needed changing in our lives, and we weren’t making those changes ourselves…(All too often, God has to knock me to my knees in order to get my attention. Maybe this period of Mr. Clark’s unemployment is another one of those times…)

Mr. Clark just walked back in, as I knew he would. He understands the cycle, too. And, while that doesn’t do anything to get him back to work, knowing that hope and acceptance follow the dark depths of anger and depression keeps us moving forward - one resume, phone call, contract job, unemployment check and prayer at a time.