Try and see it as a holiday,’ my manager smiled awkwardly.
It was April, we were on a Zoom call and she was breaking the news that my team and I were all due to be furloughed.
‘Relax,’ she said, though I was anything but.
The thought of months on furlough filled me with dread. I was very grateful to still have a job when so many people around me were losing theirs, but I wasn’t sure I’d be able to pay my rent and bills on 80% of my wages.
And would there still be a job to come back to in a few months?
As I descended into a pity party, well-meaning friends reassured me that everything would be fine, but how could they know that? If the corona-coaster has taught us anything, it’s just how unpredictable life is.
I didn’t think, months on, that I would be unwilling to let furlough go.
But at the time I was worrying about my finances – and more than that, I was also consumed with grief. I wasn’t just losing a career but my sense of self.
My job, as a magazine editor, gave me purpose. I’ve wanted to be a writer since I was five years old but I could no longer see the road ahead.
As furlough approached, and I tied up loose ends at work, I could feel myself sinking further and further into an existential quicksand. Who was I without this job? I had no idea.
One evening, after an emotionally gruelling Zoom yoga class, I lay on the living room floor crying my heart out as my wife held me and told me that she loved me, and that of course I was a writer, with or without a job.
Those first few weeks, I felt utterly useless. Instead of using all the free time I now had to make sourdough or learn a language, my days were spent listening to sad songs, wallowing, and feeding the saboteur in my head that told me I am no one without a job.
Four months later, however, things could not be more different. I think I might just be addicted to furlough.
In the time I’ve been at home, I have learnt that my self-worth is not determined by my job. I had been dreading doing nothing – the devil makes work for idle hands, after all – but those initial, inert weeks aside, my furlough has been non-stop.
Since the beginning of May, I’ve read more books than I did in the whole of 2019. I’ve started the work of confronting my white privilege, learning how to be a better ally to people of colour.
I’ve taken up writing poetry for the first time since I was a teenager (it’s just as bad now as it was then). I’ve made cinnamon buns and pastel de natas and the most gigantic Yorkshire puddings you’ve ever seen.
I am addicted to not having crippling anxiety (Picture: Carrie Lyell)
I’ve perfected crow pose, side plank and learned how to do a headstand (partially amputating my little toe in the process, but that’s another story).
I’ve played a lot of Mario Kart. I’ve donated blood. I’ve cycled nearly 800 miles, acquiring the best tan of my life in the process. I’ve achieved a new 10k personal best.
I’ve run errands for elderly relatives and delivered ice lollies to covid-stricken friends. Idle? These hands have never been busier.
Government ‘sources’ have spoken of ‘furlough addiction’ and headlines have blasted work-shy spongers for killing the economy.
So when I say I am addicted to furlough, I of course mean: I am addicted to not having crippling anxiety.
To being off the relentless, rolling treadmill and having time to take in the scenery. I am addicted to not being defined by what I do to pay my bills.
It hasn’t all been lavish lockdown lunches, of course. I’ve had psoriasis flare ups, and nightmares, and developed a constant ringing in my ears. There was a lot of crying.
And I readily acknowledge that I am so, so privileged. I have had an income throughout. I haven’t had to queue for a food bank. I can’t imagine what the last few months would have done to my mental health without the safety net offered by the Government’s job retention scheme.
Research by the Samaritans has found that the pandemic has taken a ‘huge toll’ on people’s wellbeing, with calls to its helpline coming from people worried about losing their jobs, businesses and fearful of homelessness.
Add to that the £10billion shortfall faced by UK charities this year just as demand soars, and we’re facing a monumental mental health crisis. I dread to think how much worse it might be when the safety net of the furlough scheme is yanked away at the end of October. I’m one of the lucky ones.
My job still exists, for now, and next week, I go back to work part time – but it won’t be the same as before. I’ve been afforded an opportunity to reevaluate my life and imagine a better future.
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Furlough has given us a taste of life in a country with a universal basic income, where a job doesn’t have to define you, and our self-worth isn’t measured by how many hours in the office we clock up.
I can see now furlough wasn’t the dead end in the road I feared it was. I didn’t think I would know who I was without a job, but I do now. I’m a writer, yes, but I’m also a wife, a daughter, a sister and a friend. I’m a runner, a cyclist, and a yogi too.
Just don’t let me do anymore headstands, okay?
