When did any of this begin?

With the coat? When this city took me as one of her own? The day I left and knew I was making a mistake? The evenings in the north, looking out the window and pining for here? The day I decided to come back, and the day after when I got my old job back? Those days I spent slumbering? That evening I started to wish I would be let go? That day, knowing I would be let go? That December afternoon, looking at this city with new eyes again, rolling past the Prinzenbad on the elevated u-bahn line, imagining a summer unemployed and free at the outdoor pool? Sometime this month, realising that I cannot continue to drift. Today, confronting my Arbeitslosigkeit, my state of unemployment. The cold hard reality of being a bum. How did this begin. Where do I begin.

Perhaps with who i am. Female. Educated to masters level, PhD dropout, though not for lack of trying to make it work. European. 30. One of the first generation of Europeans to be raised knowing they were European, knowing that that meant peace and freedom of movement and holding our hands across the continent, loving each other and not fighting wars and doing dead end jobs in each others cities. Taking this freedom of movement thing almost as a command to get up and move. One of those Europeans that has no adult history in their home country. Who now has to trust that my claws into this social system will hold me, that my years of working a dead end job that just about payed for pizza and beer will save my ass for long enough so that I can figure out what to do next. I am 30 and unemployed in translation, unemployed in German. Arbeitslos.