Three months ago, the HR manager summoned me to a meeting in the conference room, signaling doom for our real estate ad agency. It then followed that my crew was “restructured” or simply re-deployed. In essence, I was to be sent to a job that required me to travel a lot. With my husband already out of town and our fourth-grader, a no-win situation was staring at me.
Thus, I resigned.
Yet, that I quit was something I was not allowed to tell anyone.
The Art of the Fake Life
Losing a job felt different when I was 40. No package, no benefits—only a bank account that was bleeding. Therefore I did what a former marketing professional, who has dignity, would do: I pretended it was all fine.
Despite everything, I still put on my work blazer every morning, kissed my kid goodbye, and “commuted” to the library. My mission? Creating the perfect internet double life.
That is what I wrote for my family and friends: “Another productive day! ☕✨” (Accompanied by a staged coffee picture from my old office.)
To my ex-colleagues I said: “Slow mornings are the best luxury.” (The picture I used was from a brunch I attended last year, which I re-used and took the geographic location of a fancy café where I haven’t been since 2022.)
“Pre-made life” got me to be an artist—digging out pictures of other people’s meals (free content), reusing old holiday pictures, and slowly using up my small collection of “look-at-me-glam-life” pictures. Each post was a little deception, but it prevented the pitying DMs from coming in.
The Lie Unravels
Following that was the incident.
I shared a Silence-At-Its-Best photo of a “sound healing workshop” (naturally, with a location). A former coworker, Lisa, was quick to react: “Wait, you’re HERE? I was at this place the whole afternoon—where are you?!” within a few minutes of the post.
I notice the beginning of a story. Not my best. A minute later, I was gone, the door slamming, running to the venue to “find” Lisa. She was just sitting there, raising one eyebrow and playing it cool. “Girl, I’ve been at this place for two hours. Are you ghost-postin’ or what?”
Stopped.
So over a $12 herbal tea (my only indulgence that week), Lisa—also recently laid off—shared: “Who are you even fooling? No one is paying that much attention to your stuff; everyone is too busy drowning in their own dumpster fire.” She was right. My perfect失业 mom act just… sad.
The Wake-Up Call
In fact, unemployment is a mood swing cycle:
- Denial (“I’ll find a better job next month!”)
- Shame (“I can’t tell them!”)
- Reckoning (“Why do I keep pretending a $300 freelance check isn’t a win?”)
That last one was the hardest. I almost didn’t notice until I had 87 job applications all rejected. I had to start to my 1st short story-writing career – it has been my first paycheck for the week of groceries is less than half, but, my kid high-fived me like I won a Pulitzer.
The Real Flex
Faking perfection is a tiring job. The real flex? Owning the mess—and still keeping up the fight.
So here is what my new “pre-made life” formula looks like:
- Forget the algorithm. Post your kid’s macaroni art. Or don’t. Nobody cares.
- Get scrappy. Your side hustle may not pay the mortgage just yet, but it’s yours.
- ** Allow others to assist you.** When I told my mother-in-law that I was out of work she said, “Half my mahjong group’s kids got laid off. You’ll figure it out.”
It really was just me doing the deception: I only needed to fool myself.
—Karen W., ex-branding maven, now freelance writer, and undergoing perfectionist recovery
If you liked this, share it with someone who needs to stop pretending their life.*
