I got laid off from my job again, so, naturally, I’m turning to Substack to fill the work-shaped void that comes with reviving my unemployed lifestyle.
As a refresher, a little less than a year and a half ago, I was laid off from my first post-grad job, which I met with fresh vigor and deep distaste for the working world. I was unhappy in that role and thought I was above the “soul-crushing” corporate environment. Two months after I posted that entry, I was hired for a new (corporate) role that I actually… liked. Everything began falling into place. My social circle in NYC expanded via amazing friends I made at work. I moved to a nicer apartment in my dream neighborhood. I could afford to take better care of myself. I felt good at what I did and that maybe, just maybe, I had finally found my professional niche. Then, on the day of my one-year anniversary at this job, our parent corporation announced via Teams that they were dissolving my entire company. A month later, it was all gone.
I could drone on about the heinous job market and the dire state of the media industry and the crushing reality of inflation and that Gen-Z is living in a world where doing everything right isn’t a guaranteed recipe for material success, but I don’t want to breathe more hot air. I’m also not interested in spiritualizing the mechanics and consequences of losing employment because, frankly, a job is a job, and a job will come again.
Instead, I’ve been consuming a significant amount of heartbreak-oriented media. Think: 500 Days of Summer (2009), Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), Call Me By Your Name (2017), One Day (2024), Normal People (2020), five seconds flat by Lizzy McAlpine, and Good Material by Dolly Alderton. Generally, my taste in media leans masochistic, so these selections aren’t too out of the ordinary, not to mention they’re all relatively mainstream pieces. For someone who isn’t actively experiencing actual heartbreak, though, I’m wallowing in these stories at a higher-than-average concentration.
No, I’m not heartbroken over losing my job or really all that sad in general (re: “a job is a job, and a job will come again”). Rather, I find heartbreak-themed media comforting because it intimately demonstrates that there’s another side to whatever you’re going through (losing my job), and, most importantly, the inevitable madness (the unemployment period) is the most notable part of the whole arc. It’s Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind where Joel desperately wants to erase Clementine from his mind but ends up frantically trying to salvage his memories with her. It’s 500 Days of Summer where Tom fantasizes that seeing Summer at her party will reignite their relationship, only to grapple with her indifference in reality. It’s Lizzy McAlpine singing “all my ghosts are with me,” as she’s haunted by her past relationships while trying to navigate new ones. It’s throwing myself an unemployment-themed party and waking up the next morning to scroll through LinkedIn and sigh. I love how the process of heartbreak makes us richer as it slowly guides us to the next great thing.
When I received news of my second layoff, I first briefly panic-cried to my mom, and then I relocated to my apartment’s empty rooftop. The day was overcast but maintained a clear Manhattan skyline, while the air was chilly but not too uncomfortably so. The appropriate weather for a liminal moment. Wearing my favorite blanket-like jacket, I sat in the weather-worn chair nearest to the fenced-in edge and vacantly stared out at the day slowly unfolding before me (it was only 11 am, after all). Once I got too cold and retreated downstairs, my coworker came over to commiserate: She vented while I silently listened and made us lunch, my signature salad of the moment. From there, we sat on my couch and drank the little alcohol I had lying around while emptying our brains of words, which didn’t take long for me because I had only one numbing thought: AGAIN? I have to do this AGAIN?
“AGAIN,” I realized, wasn’t solely directed at this being my second layoff – it was directed at the deja vu I was experiencing about COVID’s beginnings. While my coworker and I lamented our career ruptures in my kitchen, I was taken back to March 2020, my junior year study abroad semester in Greece, age 20, when my friends and I were manically dancing in my room after learning our lives were about to take a sharp detour for the unforeseeable future. What physically brought us together was disbanded overnight, and we were unknowingly left to reinvent all aspects of our early 20s.
In the years since, as my peers and I have navigated our introductions to the “real world,” every event now seemingly comes with a disillusioned aftertaste – fragmented college experiences, remote jobs, wave after wave of layoffs, inflation, the loneliness epidemic, and even the trend cycle (okay, done breathing hot air). Obviously, young adulthood is a historically confusing time, and COVID-related displacement isn’t contained to Gen-Z, but hearing “surely this isn’t normal” one too many times has hindered my ability to separate “roughing it in your 20s” from general societal entropy. All of this in succession is what’s heartbreaking.
So, to cope, I bury myself in heartbreak media of all kinds. While writing this essay, I knew I understood what I gathered from heartbreak narratives (the satisfaction of seeing an end and a new beginning), but I was struggling to fully encapsulate why exactly I found them so soothing. Then I came across Ted Gioia’s essay “13 Observations on Ritual.” Here, he mostly speaks to our loss of ritual due to screens, but I applied a few of his points to why I’m drawn to heartbreak stories in unstable times:
7. Ritual is a source of stability, especially in our moments of greatest vulnerability — hence the rituals of mourning, coming-of-age, farewell, politeness, and remembrance.
9. Economic interests fear genuine ritual, because it is not about consumption.
10. When deprived of rituals, people are driven to create their own.
Heartbreak’s arc is a timeless ritual, and in a hybrid social-digital landscape where fully-fledged ritual is an endangered species, I seek out the one human ritual bound to breathe through its full range of emotions and sensations (corny!). These stories are a grounding reminder that, in a world that increasingly whittles down major life events to a push notification, it’s still a very human thing happening to you, and that thing deserves a thorough celebration or mourning process.
Namely, now that I’m unemployed again, I’ve reclaimed spending extensive time outside on weekday afternoons without guilt, making a point to notice who occupies the streets of my neighborhood and how they traverse the world at 2 pm versus 6 pm. I text my friends more. My feelings take up my entire day, not just 7-9 am and 6-11 pm. These actions are part of my ritual. It’s the least I can do when the world keeps asking us to reinvent the wheel.
In the instances when I’ve been heartbroken, I’m always most struck by how my senses are elevated in the immediate aftermath – grass looks greener, the sun beams brighter, voices sound sharper, silence inches by slower. It’s a moment that you know will remain a vivid memory even before the moment’s over. Biologically, I’m pretty sure this is a fight-or-flight trauma response, but I always look back on these moments as exceptionally beautiful, how you can be battered by life while holding a heightened, almost magical attunement to your ordinary surroundings.
I’m choosing to welcome this round of unemployment like an old friend come to visit – it’s a little awkward at first, there’s an unspoken acknowledgment that this engagement is a deviation from our newfound lives, but once the hangout’s over, I’m reminded of why we’ve stood the test of time in each other’s lives (or why we haven’t). It’s La La Land where Mia and Seb nod to each other in recognition of who they once were together and who they’ve now become apart. It’s Past Lives where Nora cries after Hae Sung leaves, not because she’ll miss him, but because he takes their shared childhood with him. It’s my staring at the ceiling at noon on a Wednesday and weaving together every life I’ve lived up to this point, knowing a new version of myself waits on the other side of this stillness.
Listening:
My “sunny day” playlist
eternal sunshine by Ariana Grande
The Very Best Of by Sheryl Crow
“My Ego Dies At The End” by Jensen McRae
Watching:
I temporarily burned myself out on movies in preparation for last week’s Oscars and haven’t really been watching any TV, so here are two fun recommendations:
Yesterday (2019)
A world in which no one remembers The Beatles finds Ed Sheeran in the band’s place… that’s all I’ll say
Dune: Part 2 (2024)
“Timmy has never looked hotter,” we all chanted in unison upon exiting the AMC Village 7.
Reading:
Euphoria by Lily King
Good Material by Dolly Alderton
The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri
“Whatever Happened to Teen Babysitters?” by Faith Hill (The Atlantic)
“The Class Politics of Instagram Face” by Grazie Sohpia Christie (Tablet)
Trying:
Dermaplaning (my latest TikTok rabbit hole)
Running more than four miles
Listening to albums instead of playlists
Cooking something new with my roommate every Monday
Seeking media that expands my worldview rather than just picking up what feels “relatable” (vague, I know, but this is a general mindset I’m working on)
Thanks for indulging my delusions!
<3 Rowan
adored this! very much feeling the "girl who is going to be okay" mood of it all :')
wonderfully hopeful! <3