It’s 3:16am and “yesterday” I was let go from my job. “Today” is my last day. And by last day, I mean showing up for five minutes to hand in a signed form saying that yes, I really am unemployed now. And saying some goodbyes.

It hit me like a tidal force. I went from being completely numb at work, to completely losing it on the phone with my mom. Now I’m back to “normal,” except I feel like I’ve got an anchor around each leg.

How the hell am I supposed to pay my rent for the next seven months? I mean, that’s the big question I have. I can maybe scoot by on my phone and utility bills, those aren’t cheap, around $300 in total, but rent is over three times that.

How naive I was to think that I’d be able to afford a decent apartment in Boston.

But was I naive? It felt like every other day, for two seconds I thought, “What if I was fired tomorrow?” And that was a mini-anchor on its own. I was always second-guessing whether I was good enough, whether I was quick enough. I still wonder. I was part of a group of 10+ let go, but could my inexperience have factored in?

And I have to come clean. Most days, I didn’t give 100%. I gave 90, or 95%. And now I’ll always question whether that was the reason. They’ll say it wasn’t, but why would they say otherwise?

And is it bad that the first, immediate feeling that hit me when I heard the news, before I’d processed it, was relief? And that since then, I’ve fantasized about having the summer “to myself” again?

Out of this scenario, I have a good four to five months of experience at a “real” company I can put on my resume. But that’s almost worthless, I think. Four times that would have been something actually worth adding.

It’s hard not to give into despair when every other member of your immediate family is going through some depressing crisis, be it separation from a longtime significant other, longtime joblessness, or entrepreneurship being crushed. Since getting my job in January, I looked at myself, perhaps arrogantly, as the shining hope of the family. Hope that things could get better, an icon.

But now I’m just another body on the pile.

I’m too close to this event to think reasonably about it. I need some time to think, and collect my thoughts. It’s kind of sad that because of my job I started ignoring this blog, and now that I don’t have it I’ll probably be using it more than ever. And at least, for that, I’m glad. The seventh anniversary of this blog is almost here, and with it, one of the most important promises I’ve ever made.

I don’t know what’s coming this summer, but I hope it ends better than it’s started.
-Andrew