IDENTITY CRISIS

I gave up on myself. My job disappeared. To be exact, I had been made redundant. It was hurtful. No soothing words were capable of restoring my self-esteem. I had given what I was able to the work. But I was cast out; shed like a superfluous thing. At first I put myself to bed—I was beyond demoralised; more like despairing. I slept for twenty-four hours. Waking in the afternoon consumed by anxiety, I showered and dressed in clothes I had not worn for months, baggy and out of date they hung off my narrow body. I needed to feel bedraggled to reflect my reduced circumstances.

My stomach ached with anxiety and hunger. Rain clung to the windows heightening my misery. Five minutes’ walk separated my flat from the supermarket. Coatless, I set off, my hair still wet from the shower. It took longer than usual to find the nearly out of date, marked-down items among the shelves. I joined the fewer than eight items till queue, feeling poor. Redundancy money was enough to pay the rent for six months but the anxiety felt paralysing. I had never not worked. My new status exiled me from the secure world I normally inhabited;