the performance of 'fine'

reflections of being unemployed for 6 months

I think I've become a method actor in my own life, and I can't remember when I started believing my own performance.

I was on a Zoom interview this morning, and I watched myself slip into character without even thinking about it. Voice went up half an octave, energy suddenly appeared from nowhere, started doing that thing where I gesture with my hands to seem more animated.

"I'm really excited about this opportunity," I heard myself say, and for a split second I felt disconnected from my own mouth. Like watching someone else perform enthusiasm I definitely don't feel. Not because I'm not excited to work again, but because I simply don't want to get my hopes up…again.

Six months of being on the job hunt and I've mastered the art of seeming okay. It's a full-time job, this pretending. The careful calibration of hope in my voice. The practiced laugh that says "I'm handling this well." The way I've learned to arrange my face into something that looks like confidence when inside I'm screaming into a void that echoes back nothing but my own desperation.

When did I become so good at lying?

Not the malicious kind. The survival kind. The kind that makes other people comfortable with my discomfort. The kind that keeps conversations light and breezy while inside I'm drowning in the deep end of my own unraveling.

It's become automatic at this point. Someone asks how I'm doing and my mouth just starts moving:

"Good! Staying busy with interviews and some exciting prospects."

What I don't say: I'm grieving. I'm fucking grieving. Some days I can't get off the couch. Not because I'm lazy, but because everything feels impossibly heavy and I'm starting to forget who I am when I'm not performing competence for other people. I've forgotten what I'm good at. I've forgotten what makes me valuable. Some days I sit at my computer and stare at job descriptions until the words blur together and I can't remember why anyone would want me.

What I don't say: I'm grieving a version of myself that felt whole.

My friend texted yesterday: "You seem like you're handling everything so well!"

I stared at that message for twenty minutes. Because what the fuck do you say to that? That I've gotten so good at pretending that even my closest friends can't see through it anymore? That "handling it well" looks like crying in my car at random points throughout the day and desperately trying to fill the emotional void with first dates and sex?

I've gotten so good at this performance that I think people actually believe I'm handling unemployment like some kind of zen master. Which creates its own problem because now I can't be honest about struggling without it seeming like I've been lying this whole time.

Maybe I have been lying. Or at least, carefully curating reality in a way that makes it easier for myself to swallow and safer to share with others.

Because that's what this is — grief dressed up in business casual, grief with a fresh coat of LinkedIn bullshit. The death of who I was when I had something to do every morning, when I had answers to the question "what do you do?" that didn't make people's faces do that thing — that sympathetic head tilt that means they're already calculating how to change the subject.

The thing about grief is that people understand it when someone dies. They bring casseroles. They check in. They give you space to not be okay.

But losing a job? Losing the part of yourself that knew what to do with eight hours a day? That's a grief that comes with expectations. You're supposed to see it as an opportunity. A chance to "pivot." A blessing in disguise.

Nobody brings casseroles for that kind of loss.

"At least you have time to figure out what you really want to do," someone said last week. Like my career was just a placeholder until I found my "real" passion.

That's disenfranchised grief, I learned recently. When others don't understand the depth of what you've lost and they minimize it with "at least" language that leaves you feeling even more alone.

I'm carrying anticipatory grief too — that heavy feeling of waiting for the other shoe to drop even though the shoe already dropped six months ago. But because I don't know when this ends, when I'll find full-time work again, if I'll find full-time work again, I'm grieving losses that haven't even happened yet.

Sure, I have some freelance work, but I don't want to be a full-time freelancer. I'm not ready to go back there — mentally, emotionally, or financially. It's something, but it's not enough to stop the feeling that I'm in freefall.

So you learn to perform gratitude. "I'm really grateful for this time to reassess my priorities." You perform growth. "I've learned so much about myself during this journey." You perform resilience. "Every no is just bringing me closer to the right yes!" Gross.

Meanwhile, I'm asking ChatGPT if I'm depressed and wondering if it counts when you're technically functioning. When you're still showering and going to the gym and making the bed and sending thank-you emails after rejections.

I monitor my responses like I'm reading from a script. How much optimism is believable? How much struggle can I admit to without making people uncomfortable?

And then I go home and feel completely drained because I've been performing enthusiasm I don't have for people who probably forgot about the conversation five minutes later.

I know the performance is making everything worse. Not just because it's exhausting, but because it's creating this weird distance between me and my actual experience.

I spend so much energy managing other people's perception of how I'm doing that I'm not actually processing how I'm doing. Like I'm having this whole breakdown in slow motion but I can't acknowledge it because I'm too busy pretending it's not happening.

I've gotten so good at the performance that I've lost track of what's underneath it. Like I'm living in the space between who I am and who I pretend to be, and that space keeps getting wider, and I keep getting smaller inside it.

Yesterday I caught myself in the bathroom mirror after another rejection email. I looked tired. Actually tired, not just "I need coffee" tired. Like the kind of tired that sleep doesn't fix.

And for a second I thought: when did I start looking like this? Do I really look this fucking drained all of the time?

I think about what I actually want to say sometimes:

In interviews: "This process is fucking with my head in ways I didn't expect. I'm good at what I do but I'm starting to question everything about myself. If you hire me, I'll work my ass off because I remember what it feels like to not have work."

To friends: "I'm not doing well. I know I seem fine but I'm not. I don't need advice or solutions. I just need someone to acknowledge that this is heavy without trying to make it lighter."

To my family: "I'm scared. Not just about money, but about whether I'm actually good at anything. Whether this is just who I am now."

But I don't say any of that. Because the version of me that says those things doesn't get hired. Doesn't get invited to things. Becomes someone other people worry about instead of someone they want to be around.

So I keep performing. Even when it feels like I'm disappearing behind all the enthusiasm and positivity and resilience.

I scroll LinkedIn and see other people in my situation posting about their "journey" and "growth mindset" and part of me wonders if they're performing too. If we're all just collectively pretending this isn't as hard as it is because that's what's expected.

Maybe that's its own kind of grief — collective grief that we're all carrying but nobody wants to name. The shared silence even when everyone is hurting.

Sometimes I wonder if this is just what being an adult is. Learning to perform functionality even when you're falling apart. Managing other people's comfort with your problems by pretending you don't have any.

Maybe everyone is just performing fine and we're all too tired to call each other out on it.

I don't know. I'm figuring this out as I go. But I'm exhausted from starring in a show I never auditioned for.