This time last year, I was unemployed. Let go in November, job interview in December, finally working at the end of January. But it happened very quickly right at the end - weeks (that felt like decades) of waiting, then I finally got my start date: January 27, 2014. I had a long stretch of feeling awful and worthless. I was perilously low on money - but I wasn’t out yet and I don’t think I had hit the kind of rock bottom that you smash into when you have to ask mom and dad for help with your rent. And your car payment. And your student loans. That happened later.

I did a lot of sitting in starbucks with tall coffees, drowning in guilt, borrowing a kind lumberjack’s laptop. So stressed that my heart would race and I’d be sweating and panicking while I applied to every job within 100 miles. That time was a lot of kraft mac and cheese, a lot of misery, and unsurprisingly, a lot of weight gain. But I digress - I’m not talking about that just this second.