I just finished writing an article for Chatter magazine in which I asked local people what they thought they might accomplish when the country first went into lockdown at the beginning of the pandemic - and what actually happened. Did they set lofty goals and fail to reach them? Did they fear loss of momentum but accomplish more than ever before? The answers were interesting and varied, and while you'll have to wait to read the article next month, I can tell you this: Most could not have predicted what they ended up doing and feeling.
Had anyone asked me what I expected at the beginning of lockdown, I'd have said something optimistic, like "Write five pages a day, learn to bake bread, play pickleball five times a week." I would not have said, "Adopt a poodle, buy a house, lose my job."
But that's exactly what happened.
What's funny (but not ha-ha) is that I didn't see any of it coming. I thought I was adopting a cocker spaniel. I thought we would stay in our old house another few years. I thought I'd still have my job as the editor of a small nonprofit magazine come January. What's even funnier (again, not ha-ha) is that, with the exception of the poodle and the house, I probably could have seen it coming, had I been paying attention.
A few days after I was laid off, my brother called from Atlanta. He was taking a walk, and so was I. As we made our way down our respective streets, I talked about the layoff, my feelings, my plans. I told him the story about how, a month earlier, a board member had written an article for the magazine: a glowing appraisal of every person who works in my agency, from the executive director to the building custodian. As editor, I couldn't help notice someone was missing. It was me.
My brother and I share a quirky sense of humor, and while at the time I'd been hurt by the oversight, in the retelling we both found it hilarious.
"Dana," said my brother, "You missed the writing on the wall!" Meaning that, in the cozy boardroom of the person writing the article, I had already been edited out for real. Word just hadn't gotten to me yet.
It's sad to lose a job that is hooked to a community you serve, are a part of and love. At the same time, I'm aware of all I have going for me that keeps a layoff from being the tragedy it is for the millions of people facing the same fate across the world. I have savings, a small freelance writing business and an income-earning husband. There are no kids to support, no health problems to finance, no unmanageable debt.
I also have something I did not know I had until a long-ago boss pointed it out to me. We were discussing a mental health client and how she was reacting to a series of unfortunate events in her life. I was a 21-year-old undertrained counselor, and I couldn't understand why the client was acting out in such a histrionic, self-defeating way.
"I would never act like that," said Me At 21, who thought everyone in the world was an extension of herself.
"Of course you wouldn't," said my boss. "Desperate people do desperate things. You ain't desperate."
I took in this information as best I could for someone with no life experience and the empathy level of a corpse. But as I got older, I revisited the conversation numerous times. As it turned out, there would be many opportunities over the course of my life to let desperation win over. To come unhinged. There would be lots of times when I could say (rightly) that no one would blame me if I acted less than impeccably in the face of (pick one) a boyfriend cheating on me, the roof of my house caving in, a parent dying young.
But an interesting thing happened. I didn't seize on those opportunities to come unhinged. I think I sensed that, as in the case of the client from all those years ago, bad behavior begets bad consequences - for ourselves and for others - and I saw no reason to heap misery on top of misery.
So it is now, with the layoff. I'm sorry it happened. I wish I'd paid more attention to the hole in the article where I should have been, if only because I admire an apt Freudian slip. I'm not sure what the future holds. But if I learned anything from that first boss, it's that desperation is the province of the desperate, and that's not a road I want to walk.
Dana Shavin is an award-winning humor columnist and the author of a memoir, "The Body Tourist." Email her at dana@danashavin.com, and follow her on Facebook at Dana Shavin Writes.
Dana Shavin