Reflections of the Newly Unemployed

I guess I had a bit of an extended holiday. I still ate a lot last night and today to celebrate my freedom from work. Whee!!!

I shoulda applied for a Canadian visa before I quit, though. Went through the requirements today, and among the suggested documents for showing is a certificate of employment. Bank statements, too, and I just so happened to have canceled my credit card a month ago. Might not look too good: I cut my only local credit card and quit my job, and almost immediately after I sever these ties to my homeland, I'm applying for entry into another country? I need to show too that I'm financially capable of supporting my travel, and although I think I have enough to get by over here, the cost of living there is so much higher, and I dunno if I have enough. And I just realized how expensive it is to apply for a visa: 3600 buckaroos??? And that's one of the cheaper visa application fees. For permanent residency visas, it's more than 20,000.

I'm gonna have to live a little simpler now, too, I guess. I've never been an extravagant spender, but when I had a job and was making my own money, I could have an occasional unplanned nice dinner or drinks or buy something nice on a whim, and saving up for a trip or some other big expense required only some overtime work and patience.

Well. No regrets. I really am glad to be outta there. Had I stayed longer, I might have fallen into that life--the life of entering the regular white-collar workforce straight out of college and making my way up that ladder (the company I work for doesn't even have a ladder; they've got even fewer steps than a Little Tykes play set, and even those are accessible only to the elite). And I might have stayed with it, until it became comfortable (comfort does not necessarily equate to happiness, to meaning), a habit. Until it became too late for me to take any other road (although I always say it's never too late; I guess in this case, I mean too late from a practical standpoint).

I need the free time. I really need to get back to work on preparing myself for music school. I need to get back into the world of art, and into the art of life. I need to retrace my steps and get back to the state of mind and being I was in before work took over my entire brain and my entire life.

And I'm still okay. I'm not broke on my ass; I do have some money. I made it a point to save a little bit of every paycheck, so I do have savings. And I have money put aside for some things: the occasional gimik (night out), a couple of trips out of town, getting my PC fixed, visa and school application fees. I just have to be very careful every single time I spend now, and that's okay. I've lived pretty much my entire life like that (I grew up without an allowance: the only money I had was limited to what I received as gifts, and so I had to spend and save carefully and wisely); it shouldn't hurt me too much to go back to that.

Totally unrelated thought: why is it that bubble baths in real life are never anywhere near as bubbly as they are in the movies/on TV? And do baths with rose petals feel as good as they look? I mean, they're just effin' petals floating on the surface of the water, and most of your body doesn't even come into contact with them. They do look heavenly though.