I was born the year after the Soviet Union dissolved; my sister was born the year before the Twin Towers fell. In between, my brother was born. The US of A was on top of the world. I imagine my parents must have felt the future was wide open for their children.

Not so much, these days. The future looks a lot more like a series of closed doors. Closed house doors, closed office doors, closed hospital doors, and the only thing the US of A is on top of is the number of coronavirus cases.

When I got sober two years and two months ago, I did it because I knew if I kept drinking, I wouldn’t have much of a future at all. But two years and two months ago I had a partner and a job and the economy was fine and there wasn’t a massive global pandemic. Now it seems like the future might be closed doors with nothing much behind them anyway.

I admit this particular bout of malaise might have been brought on by something other than the constant steady drumbeat of climate change (Death Valley hit 130 degrees! Highest temperature ever recorded! My God, humans can’t live like that!) or coronavirus cases (much like our planet’s temperature, deaths keep going up, up, up). Two things, in fact. My ex-boyfriend finally did what he said he was going to do and he moved across the country to Colorado. Until now I could hold out a last little bit of hope that maybe he would see the light – that Maine has everything Colorado does, and at a better economy of scale to boot – but it was not to be. So now I have to go through the whole laborious process of “dating” all over again … except not for a while because, you know. Global pandemic, spreading virus, etc.

The second thing that happened is I found out someone else got hired for my old job. When I found out, it felt sort of like the sting when you see your ex with a new partner, but worse, because you don’t get health insurance from a boyfriend. My mom says it was probably just a financial decision – I was earning a little over $18 an hour when I was laid off, and they could probably get someone for $15. Maybe she’s right. I hope she is, because it feels a bit more personal to me. I worked there for five years, after all. That’s longer than any relationship I’ve had. I never quite fit in – it was a really outdoorsy and athletic workplace, and if you’re just tuning into my writing, I am neither of those things, but I liked it. It was solid, predictable, routine work that came with benefits.

In fact, when we started working from home at the beginning of the pandemic, before I got laid off, I was stupid enough to actually start thinking about the future. The work-from-home thing was going pretty well, technologically speaking, and I thought that maybe the office would be remote-flexible into the future. Maybe if they were, I could make the whole “parenthood” thing work someday.

Maybe thinking of the future as an upward curve of possibilities was the problem. Maybe it jinxed me. Sorry if the curse spread and anyone else got jinxed too.

So, now I’m back to Square One, and I don’t know what the odds are of finding a job in Maine, in the middle of historically high unemployment and a global pandemic, that pays $18 an hour with benefits and lets you work from home. But I do know I would not take those odds to Vegas. I guess one thing Colorado has that Maine doesn’t is a lot more jobs.

I know I’m not supposed to compare myself to others, but when my mom was my age, she was married and had a house. (She didn’t have a dog, so I guess I’ve got that going for me.) As a recovering addict, I’m very good at taking things one day at a time. But eventually you have to start planning at least a little bit long term, even with the full knowledge that life is what happens when you’re busy making plans, and long term is where I hit the mental roadblock. The situations in our country and in our world are bad and getting worse.

On the bright side, I bet Target would take me back. I still have plenty of red shirts.

Victoria Hugo-Vidal is a Maine millennial. She can be contacted at:
themainemillennial@gmail.com
Twitter: @mainemillennial

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