Where my life went wrong

This is a deviation from our regular posts on myCosmeticBag, but I have been wanting to write more about our personal lives as well as other topics outside of beauty; like fashion, media, and DIY. I’d love to hear feedback from our readers about what kind of posts they like reading on mcb!

As some of you may know, last year was really rough for me. I made a poor decision to accept a job offer from a start-up company without doing the proper research on them first. This company, which I won’t name on the blog, hired me as a full-time salaried User Interface Engineer and Creative Director. At the time I accepted their job offer, I also had three other great offers on the table, but I decided to accept this one because this was the only position that was 100% work-from-home. This was extremely ideal for me since I wanted to have more time to work on myCosmeticBag. I typically work faster than most people in my position, so I can usually get all my work done in half a day and then I’d have the rest of the day to devote to other things. They also offered me the highest salary. Overall, I was very excited about this new job.

So, where did it go wrong? Well, the company basically hired me under false pretenses – offering me a salary that they knew they could not actually afford. In fact, they wouldn’t have been able to afford even half of what they agreed to pay me. I found out later that they didn’t even pay the recruiter that referred me to them! Every single paycheck I received from them was either a few hundred dollars short, or two to three weeks late. This led to me having plenty of financial problems of my own. I was late on my rent and all my other bills. Because I was late, I was getting all these fees, and since I was constantly having to catch up with the last month’s bills, I basically never had any money left over for basic things like groceries. I ate mini-bagels and drank Propel all summer. While this was a great way to lose weight, I did miss eating like a normal person and being able to go out with my friends. Boston is an extremely expensive city. The whole situation threw me into a deep depression – I had always been self-sufficient before this, and here I was unable to take care of myself. And if that all wasn’t enough, I was even more bitter about my job because a week after I accepted the job offer, I got an email from a very popular cosmetics brand that wanted to hire me on as a web developer – and it was actually the SECOND time I missed my opportunity with this brand. If I get a third chance, I am definitely not letting it go. The reason why I continuously decided to stick with this company was because I didn’t want to jump from job to job anymore, and I thought that if i just endured it for a while, that eventually they would turn the corner and it would lead to a better situation for me.

On top of my dwindling career and my financial hardships, I was ending the most profound relationship I had ever been in with a man I thought I was going to spend the rest of my life with. Cue the tears, endless nights of crying, and annoying all my friends with my constant pity-parties. I look back on that time in utter disgust at my behavior. It wasn’t the only relationship I ended either… I basically stopped talking to a couple of my friends who did nothing but try to warn me about my ex, because I thought that they weren’t being supportive. I didn’t want to hear about what other people thought of my relationship, because it was just too hard at the time.

One day, my mom called me out of concern for my financial situation and suggested that I move back home for a while until I figured out what to do next. I was against this idea at first, because… well, let’s face it… what 26 year old wants to move back home after being on their own for quite a while? After another conversation with my boss, I realized that I didn’t have any other choice but to move home for a while. I was dreading the move, completely. My parents moved to Houston a few years ago, so I would be in a new place which was completely opposite of everything I was used to. I am a city-girl through and through, and I didn’t know how I would survive in a place like Texas, especially with no friends. The only redeeming qualities Texas had to offer me at the time was the prospect of being able to be around my new nephew all the time, and being able to help my family more. I decided to move to Texas to cut down on all my expenses… I also decided to stick with the current company since it was very minimal work, and though they were paying me late every week, I was still getting paid eventually. I could save up the money, then move back to Boston to find a new job.

Finally, in October, the company shut its doors. They weren’t able to find additional funding, and had no choice but to let everyone go. I am still thinking about whether or not I should sue them for the amount of money I would have made last year if it weren’t for them. Now, I was jobless and still had no friends in Texas. I wasn’t financially ready to move back to Boston yet. The only real friend I had was my older sister, and while we did spend a lot of time together, it wasn’t really the same. I mean… I can’t take my older sister to a bar to get drunk and do normal 26 year old things because she’s married and has a kid and is seven years older than I am. I spent my days and nights at home almost every day, sinking deeper and deeper into my depression. I watched The Vampire Diaries from beginning to end, and that was basically my whole life. I didn’t even have the silver lining of losing weight from being too poor to feed myself, because my mom cooked my favorite meals every night, so I just got fatter and fatter. I didn’t have the energy to even blog. I tried looking for jobs in Houston, but there wasn’t really a market here. The cost of living here is 60% cheaper than in Boston, which would mean I’d be taking a 60% decrease in pay. My pride wouldn’t allow me to abide that. As time moved along, my skills actually became rustier.

Eventually, I did venture out for the first time. I am an avid fan of karaoke, so when I turned the corner from my street and ended up at a karaoke bar, I was more than intrigued. I met a group of people there, one of which owned the bar. This led to me basically going out every night and getting plastered on free booze – not a very productive lifestyle. While I do cherish my friends, and am happy that they welcomed me with open arms, I can’t help but look back on that time and shake my head. It was fun while it lasted, but it needed to end, so that I could move forward and do great things with my life.

Now that this post is 1329 words long, I think I should conclude Part 1 here. Stay tuned for Part 2 to read about how I finally turned my life around, which will be a much happier post!