Breakout Theory/Target Vortex

Ever since I’ve been unemployed, I constantly wonder “How did I do anything when I had a job?” My dishes are overflowing, even though I did three loads of laundry over the weekend I still seem to have piles and piles waiting around on my floor, begging for the attention of a spin cycle, and I still haven’t put up any of my pictures and art for the walls of our apartment. So this begs the question, what have I been doing? Even though I technically have nothing to do all day, it seems like I still don’t have enough time to take care of the things I need to do. Where are those hours going, though? Here’s my theory: the less you have to do, the harder it is to do anything at all, but the more you have to do, the easier it is to get everything done. I’m calling it the Breakout Theory, because you know when you play that game Breakout with the ball and the bricks and when you have a million bricks its easy, you’re just hitting bricks left and right, but as soon as you get down to one brick, it’s impossible because the ball keeps bouncing around, directionless in all the empty space. This is why we as humans need something to do, because the momentum of doing one productive thing propels us to do the other productive things. I need a job not for the money or companionship of other human beings, but because I really need to start making my bed.

The loss of time could also be due to what I am now calling the Target Vortex, where an unemployed person goes into Target (or another large store, any store where you could have potentially been lost as a child will do) and even though you have a specific list of things that you need, you know in a very undefined, hazy way, that you have nowhere else to be, so you wander around for hours. Yesterday I went to Target to get toilet paper. That was all I needed. Two hours later I found myself wandering through the vitamin aisle, cart full of various items: trashbags, sample size bottles of shampoo, curtain rods. I was reading the backs of labels, wondering if I was the type of person who needed more vitamin K.

It’s been nice to take a break, but I’m ready to have a job now, universe.