If you've ever been unemployed, you understand the hardships you face.  One day I woke up and realized that in addition to not having a steady income anymore, I no longer had health insurance.  What that meant was that a twenty- dollar co-pay at the doctor's office could all of a sudden turn into hundreds or possibly thousands of dollars in medical bills, depending on the seriousness of an illness.  Gone also were the employee discount savings attached to my homeowners and auto insurance policies.  Now someone might say that at my age I should've been better prepared for the unexpected.  You know what I say to that?

WHATEVER!

Another thing you discover when you're out of work is who your real friends are.  There were people who called themselves my friends on the job but when the ax fell on my head, they scattered, never to be heard from again.  I don't blame them though.  Why would they want to be associated with someone who was stepping out into the abyss, when they could remain safe and secure in a steady, paying job, while saving up for their "own rainy day" and preparing for the unexpected?  To be associated with me could get them "labeled" and "fired."

But with all of that said, I will tell you being unemployed does have its advantages.  I get to take a much needed mental break.  After more than twenty-five years in the news business, my brain became exhausted.  I lived, breathed and slept with BREAKING NEWS everyday!  Now, I'm leading a quiet gentler life and being oblivious to the newsmakers around me.  Ironically, the big breaking story the day I left was the Duke Lacross players rape investigation.

I'm getting to spend more time with my teenaged daughter.  Ever since she was about eight years old, I had a schedule that had me working when she came home from schol.  When I came home from work, she was in the bed sound asleep. 

The first couple of days after my untimely termination, my daughter kept apologizing for being selfish.  She told me she had been praying a long time that God would make it possible to have me at home when she got home from school.  She learned that God does, indeed, answer prayer.  I learned the same thing but I know now that our prayers aren't always answered the way we expect them to be.