Well. It's been a little over a month since my last post. Let me tell you how things have moved along since then.
When I got back home from my parents', the first thing I started thinking about was where to find the time to actually look for a job. I hadn't done a focused job search like this in a very, very long time. I'll write about how the job market has changed in a separate post: it turned out to be a whole giant world with new rules I definitely don't know.
After weighing my options, I decided a nanny by the hour would be just right for me! Monthly, it costs about the same as daycare. But if my little one is sick, the nanny simply doesn't come and I don't pay. Plus, she doesn't need a long adaptation period: she can play right next to me for those few hours a day. And honestly, she gets sick way less often this way.
Without waiting for a job to appear, I decided to invest in this option. Thank you for your support and the coffees after my last post, and thank you to my dad, who, knowing how tight things were, helped a little. Every hryvnia went to the nanny.
With my hands finally free, I started looking for work sooo hard. I reworked my CV 20 times to show my experience as clearly and sharply as I could. And I ran into a collapse of the job market in Ukraine that I honestly didn't expect. At all. I had no idea it had sunk this far, in both salaries and demand for specialists. The war has hit Ukrainian business incredibly hard. It's barely surviving, and of course there's no getting around that.
And just as I'd finally got my routines in place to keep going and had almost felt the bottom to push off from, baaam. Another blow. The bank shut me out of borrowing any further. And it happened in the most epic way possible: at the exact moment I went to buy diapers for my little one.
Anger. Pain. Shame. Disappointment and a dozen other feelings crashed into that one single moment at a supermarket checkout. I HAD NEVER BEEN IN A SITUATION LIKE THIS IN MY LIFE. Thinking about how little food was left in the fridge, my daughter and I trudged home.
But, thank God, I have friends and family. First my mom, then a friend, gave me money, and my little one and I kept paddling. Around that same time I was offered a side gig for a couple of months, and of course I said yes. It buys me time to find a company where I can use my expertise and potential to the fullest, and to feel solid ground under my feet again.
So right now I'm still searching and working on this project. And I know it's all going to be good.
And today I decided to talk to my ex about splitting the cost of the nanny. It's like paying for daycare, after all. He said no. I wasn't even angry. A little sad, but I knew it would go that way. And I'm glad I took that step, because now I know: it's not that I don't let him take responsibility, he simply doesn't want it.
And you know what? I'm not planning to sue him or anything like that. No. I just know that never again in my life, in any hard moment, will I ask him for help (although it's not help for me, it's his child, come on). I will get through all of this, no doubt about it. It's only a matter of time.
Then I started thinking that I always had a little ray of sunshine inside me. I barely noticed it, because it had been with me since birth, my whole life. I had so much energy, and I handed it out to everyone I met, because otherwise I might overflow. If you ever came on one of my tours, you might have felt it. I hope.
But in that relationship, and especially after my baby was born, my little ray of sunshine vanished without a trace. I can't feel it anymore. God, I'm writing this and crying again. It's not on purpose, honestly, honestly. The ray is gone. I stopped wanting to see people, to go on social media, to spread light. Because you can't spread what isn't in you.
That thought led me to my big, global goal: to grow a new little ray of sunshine. One so powerful that no person and no circumstance could ever destroy it. And to raise my daughter so that the little ray she was born with (and this child is pure happiness) never goes out.
And my heart aches for every woman who loses her energy and her spark going through something like this. Now I notice just how many of us there are. So I'll do my best to become a support for myself, and who knows, maybe I can pass that support on to others. Because you remember, right? When I'm overflowing with happiness, I share it generously!
P.S. Let me know in the comments if you'd like to read about what's happening in the job market right now. If so, I'll definitely write about it.