The Choice is Yours.

When you lose your job, you're suddenly faced with a lot of choices. Some are bigger, more existential ones, such as "Why am I here?" "What should I do with my life?" "What's the greater lesson in all of this?"

Those are a few that I try not to ask myself too often- but in the dark, as I try to shuttle off to dreamland, there they are--hiding in my bed and farting under the covers. They were there before I lost my job, when I was working and feeling unfulfilled, struggling with tough bosses or stressful deadlines or writer's block or difficult clients-- or all of those things at once.

The questions that really get to me though, are the ones I never used to have to ask myself.

"If I save all of my money for the next two weeks, skip lunch every other day and clip coupons, should I use that money I can scrimp together to get myself a manicure OR a pedicure?"

"This Christmas, should I buy a Christmas tree, or should I save that money so that I can afford to buy gifts and put them where the tree would normally be?"

"Should I go to the doctor, or hope this sickness works itself out?"

"Can I afford a Metrocard this week, or should I just risk arrest and go under the turnstyle?"

Not exactly "Sophie's Choice," true. But the things I never had to wonder before, the choices I never had to make- that's what trips me up. I have to stop and think now about things that used to be automatic, no-brainer responses to simple, everyday conundrums. The more simple they were before, the more heartbreaking they are now.

Do I sound spoiled? That I get weepy over the fact that I can't afford a $17 (plus tip!) mani/pedi combo? Maybe. But as the holidays approach, the choices I have to make become more and more glaring. My family has agreed to not exchange gifts, but of course we'll buy for my niece and nephew. I scour the catalogs and find the perfect items for each of them-- for my musically gifted nephew James, I consider an instrument that I know he'll love. But I can't afford it. And so I just think about how much I want to give it to him, and I get a little sadder.

I've been through this before, of course. Not the last time I was unemployed, in 2001- when I was still waving around my various credit cards like they were the American flag. I went through it when I paid off my debt- when I made homemade gifts for my family, when I shopped sales and saved money and did everything I could to not let my financial dire straights and my $700 a month debt payment bring me down. There were lessons there, for sure. I got myself in that mess, I got myself out. But this time I did everything I was supposed to do. I worked hard. I stayed late. I did my best. And I lost my job anyway. My financial insecurity isn't because I overspent- it's because this is just the way the world is right now.

It's easy to feel resentful. Not towards you,the employed- because you can get a mani/pedi and hey, get your eyebrows waxed while you're at it. But at me: because I didn't save as much as I wanted when I was working, because I took my employment for granted, because I used to be able to not have to think about these things. And because I took that for granted.

As they say, resentment is like drinking poison and waiting for someone else to die. It gets me nowhere to be angry at myself. This isn't my fault, and I am doing the best I can. I once read that life is 10% what happens to us, and 90% how we react to it.

So now I have a new choice to make. Do I get down, do I allow self-pity to run riot through my apartment? Do I get under the blankets with the farty air and feel sad that there are no jobs, that rejection letters fly like confetti into my mailbox?

Or do I just tuck and roll? Muscle through this holiday season and know that this too shall pass, and that one day in the hopefully not-so-distant future, I'll get to look back on Christmas of 2009 and say, you know what, that was a tough one. Not as tough as 2007, not as easy as 2006. It was hard, but I got through it. Not because of what was happening, but because of how I reacted to it: with a positive attitude. With faith that things would turn around. With dignity, with grace, and with hope. That's the choice I want to make today. To live in the positive. To live in hope.

Happy holidays, everyone. I hope that they are merry and bright for you- no matter what you get-- or don't get.

From the Reject Pile: Gimme Some Credit

I love Jane Pratt. I always have, she's my editorial icon and she's adorable with glossy hair and cute glasses, and she was the object of my very first girl-crush the first time I saw her on "The Jane Pratt Show." She was also the editor of my favorite magazine, Jane.

Jane was like a riot grrrl bible, and while I didn't riot much, I did love the idea of it, and the magazine's real-girl tone. My favorite section of the magazine was called "It Happened to Me," where readers wrote in their real life stories about experiences that changed their lives.

I decided to submit a story to Jane about my credit card debt and my struggle to get back in the black. It was, sadly, rejected-- and a story about a woman who became addicted to self-tanner ran instead (complete with orange-faced photo). It turned out, I realized later, than my dear Jane Pratt had been sacked, and her namesake magazine was already being overhauled by the time I hit "send" on my story. I stopped reading Jane-- I just didn't enjoy it anymore. Shortly thereafter, it folded. It seemed Jane couldn't go on without Jane or Julia.

While it's not exactly new writing, it's new to you. So, thanks to Jane's rejection I have a new blog posting. Straight out of the reject pile, for your reading pleasure, is my 2006 submission to Jane magazine. It seemed a shame to me that it never got read, because as I say in the piece, my openness about my debt has enabled people to approach me and ask for advice about their own credit card nightmares. I am always willing to share my story because I think it's important to know that when you're drowning in debt it is scary, but you're not alone, and you can get out of it. So read, enjoy, and post your credit rating in the comments! Ha!

It Happened to Me: I spent $23,000 on Overalls.

“Just tell me, Julia-- just tell me how much. Is it $3,000? Is it 10? Oh, you’re scaring me.”

I couldn’t speak. As soon as I had hung up with my credit card company, it had been instinct to call my father, Fixer of All Things, and now partially out of denial and partially out of concern for his bad heart, I was regretting it.

Deep breath. Here comes my big secret.

“It’s $23,000 dollars, Dad. I have $23,000 in credit card debt.”

***

I wish that I could start this tale by itemizing the great things I’d bought with my credit cards. I’d love to list rich leather Marc Jacobs bags, piles of Manolo Blahniks and vacations on the shores of Greece. But I can’t. In fact, I can’t remember most of what that $23,000 went to-- some ill advised overalls--yes, overalls (in multiple colors)-- during college (it was the '90s), rounds of drinks for “friends” whose names I can’t recall, clothes I didn’t need or even really like that much but found on sale. That's about as much as I can remember.

As the bills grew, so did my denial. I’d look at a credit card statement and think, “Oh, $3,000 isn’t that bad,” without acknowledging of the five other cards in my wallet with charges at least that high. Then the snowball effect: I’d spend my paycheck on my credit card bills, trying to give each at least $20 over the minimum balance, then have no money leftover to live on until the next payday, and have to use the credit cards again. Tack on the finance charges and interest rates (some as high as 24.99%), and my debt was increasing by about $300 a month-- even if I didn’t spend a dime. I hid the mounting stress from my family and friends.

When I decided to consolidate (a bill with minimum payment of $980 broke my denial and made it an easy decision), my mother said, “You’ve decided to do something. You’re in the solution, and you're going to get out of this. You did the hard part, making the decision. Now it will get better.” And she was right. I even felt better-- the idea of being debt free one day motivated me and helped me get through the hard days ahead. In the weeks that followed, I was turned down for loans everywhere I went because my salary was too low, and my credit cards would only increase my limit by a few thousand dollars so I could keep spending, but I couldn’t consolidate with them. It was hard not to feel hopeless.

In that time, I learned that I was the ideal credit card customer: poorly educated in interest rates, paying only the minimum balance. I had been the student on campus who signed up for a card to get the freebies (pizza! T-shirts!) and never read the fine print about how those 0% interest rates can shoot up to 20% after six months.

While paying off my debt, I learned exactly how much I didn’t need. I went from having too much to realizing how little I needed or wanted. I checked prices, packed lunches, and, even after losing more than 40lbs, bought limited clothing, only on sale and only with cash.

I was extremely fortunate to have a very supportive family. In the end, my parents took a risk by cosigning my loan, and I proudly tell you that I made tremendous payments every month, never missing one, never being late, and never asking them to cover it for me. My brothers, sister-in-law and nephew accepted homemade crafts for holidays. They never made me feel weird or badly about any of it-- they were proud of me, and they made me realize that I should be proud, too.

I’m writing this on the day before I make my final debt payment. With interest on the loan, I will have paid off $26,000 in almost three years. I can’t say it has been easy, but I can say that it feels very good-- and it has from the second I made the first payment. I dug myself out: I am debt free. My openness about my debt has led people to approach me about their similar (or worse) situations and ask for help. They feel like they’re drowning. I remember that feeling well. And I tell them to listen to my mother: You have decided to do something, and now you're in the solution. You will get out of this, and you will feel better.

Julia Donahue, 29, grew up in Brooklyn, New York, where she currently lives as a writer on a tight budget.