giddily unemployed in new york city

When I grow up I want to be a dancer….. a veterinarian…. an actress…

I’ve grown up to be a 25 year-old copywriter who plays at words and weaves dreams bigger than the words. I live in Upper Manhattan. The city beats inside my heart. My pulse quickens, it races every time I walk out of my apartment and onto the street. Its power recharges my inventive soul. Even though I’m unemployed after recently finishing a grueling two-year diploma from the Miami Ad School, and there are nights where I lie awake with my eyes wider than a person on crack, and the stress makes my stomach churn, I wouldn’t want to be jobless or “financially challenged” anywhere else in the world.

Every day is a test. When I walk past a store, clothes smile at me. Welcome, Samira. I enter, select a couple of dresses and goose step into the dressing room. I try them on making ohh aaah sounds to myself and then bid them a bawling goodbye. I must be patient until Geithner’s recovery kicks in; until then I’ve got to save those pennies to buy recession-proof protein like canned spam.

But sometimes the sight of a girl with an armful of dresses mountained all the way to her to her nose shoots me full of shopping adrenaline. The adrenaline wears off and I’m left with the guilt and a slightly larger wardrobe. Besides shopping, my weekends are my second biggest battle. A night after taking cabs, ordering shots, and projectile puking, I wake up not only with a hangover but also my irksome conscience nagging me in a voice similar to George Costanza’s mother from Seinfield, “ Now did you really have order that apple Martini?.... Couldn’t you have just walked home...?”

I am successful in shutting her up during the week since my days are mostly spent job hunting and consuming insane amounts of coffee. My evenings are spent watching Millionaire Matchmaker, some downtime with my friends or with my sister and two-year-old nephew who has the ability to erase each and every one of my worry lines.

I sit on my roommate’s beige -brown- something couch writing this. I am distracted by a sound of a siren an unusually loud laugh and episodic honking, I can’t help but smile. The city can be so loud sometimes that I can’t hear my own thoughts, which to me is a good thing. I need a break from my own head and constant thoughts that cause me to worry and take me far, far away from the moment.

With my current financial situation, I don’t know how long I can revel in my city of joy. Eventually I will need to wake up, but for right now I’ll keep hitting the snooze button.