Bread
Over and Over
I've been here the whole time, laughing, scrapping, working, thinking, yearning, puzzling, knowing and finally deciding.
I sat down three and half weeks ago to write this.
I was going to tell you how I'm in the middle of a long exhale. Life has been full of changes, the biggest of which is my recent decision to quit my day job and wade back into the uncharted waters of freelance work and my love of the arts. I have struggled, these last months, with the familiar stagnancy of doing the same thing every day, of feeling like a wage slave as I spend 8, 10, 12, 14 hours per day throwing my love and my energy at someone else's vision for too little money and even less of my own time. I have worked for an amazing company these last two years, a company I have left with the fondest of farewells, and a sense of greater purpose and renewed commitment to things I have previously dismissed at too frivolous for becoming my "real" life.
That was three and half weeks ago, and, as always, real life kicked me in the ass again. The very next day, the very day after I started that post, an apartment opportunity presented itself. For those of you who know me closely, you know that finding just the right apartment to settle into in this city has been a seven year longing for me. Moving is always really hard, and despite my initial misgivings, the situation offered to me was just too good to pass on. Bad timing, really good situation. The result? It's nearly a month later, I'm half-unpacked in my very wonderful new apartment, but the cost was high, and I'm smarting. I had, over a period of months, saved a sizable amount of money to carry me through my period of unemployment, and was poised to enjoy at least two or three months of time to myself before I really needed to start worrying, by which time I had hoped I would be generating at least a small writing income. In addition, I had another income source on top of that based on my previous rental situation, so I felt I was good.
Things, as they often do, failed to work out the way I planned, and my world is on tilt right now. I used my backup money to move, and, through a series of unrelated events, lost my backup income as well, leaving my wallet really thin right now. I lost my time and space for a clear head and creative pursuits in the stress of planning, packing, moving and unpacking, and trying to find a sublet for my now empty but still under lease old apartment. Part of me is screaming to go out and do what I know I can, which is get a job, a grown up job, back in my career field, and cope with this stress by falling back on the security of a steady paycheck, 401k and health insurance. The trouble is, having a fall-back option means that, in these situations, you always... fall back. And the joyful stuff gets shunted to the back burner. Again.
My decision to quit my job was huge. HUGE. Going off the grid is not easy for me. I've always been a person who finds security in a routine, in a controlled environment and knowing what comes next. I'm a girl with a plan.
Except, right now, I'm not. I met someone new the other day, and I didn't really have an answer to the question "what do you do?" HUGE. I want to go to film school. I want to direct another show. I want to make t-shirts and sit in Union Square all day and sell them. I want to freelance. I want to write a novel. I want to get my MSW. I want to get a clinician's license and do private-practice therapy. I want to create street-art. I want to open a cookie bakery. I don't want there to be limits on what I can do, and I don't want to fall back.
Still, there are bills to be paid.
I don't know what I'm actually going to do right now, but I know that I can't not write about it. I've missed writing about it, and I have thought, at several points over the last year, that I wanted to re-initiate but the recap seemed too overwhelming.
At this point, I feel like... fuck the recap. I'm here, I have no idea what is coming next, and I'm stupidly excited and stupidly terrified at the same time. I forgot, though, that this is what growing feels like.
Nice to see you, friends, and stay tuned. I fall. But I get up again. Like Madonna. Over and Over.
¶ 10:25 PM 0 comments
Tuesday, September 09, 2008
Oh, friends, it's been awhile.I've been here the whole time, laughing, scrapping, working, thinking, yearning, puzzling, knowing and finally deciding.
I sat down three and half weeks ago to write this.
I was going to tell you how I'm in the middle of a long exhale. Life has been full of changes, the biggest of which is my recent decision to quit my day job and wade back into the uncharted waters of freelance work and my love of the arts. I have struggled, these last months, with the familiar stagnancy of doing the same thing every day, of feeling like a wage slave as I spend 8, 10, 12, 14 hours per day throwing my love and my energy at someone else's vision for too little money and even less of my own time. I have worked for an amazing company these last two years, a company I have left with the fondest of farewells, and a sense of greater purpose and renewed commitment to things I have previously dismissed at too frivolous for becoming my "real" life.
That was three and half weeks ago, and, as always, real life kicked me in the ass again. The very next day, the very day after I started that post, an apartment opportunity presented itself. For those of you who know me closely, you know that finding just the right apartment to settle into in this city has been a seven year longing for me. Moving is always really hard, and despite my initial misgivings, the situation offered to me was just too good to pass on. Bad timing, really good situation. The result? It's nearly a month later, I'm half-unpacked in my very wonderful new apartment, but the cost was high, and I'm smarting. I had, over a period of months, saved a sizable amount of money to carry me through my period of unemployment, and was poised to enjoy at least two or three months of time to myself before I really needed to start worrying, by which time I had hoped I would be generating at least a small writing income. In addition, I had another income source on top of that based on my previous rental situation, so I felt I was good.
Things, as they often do, failed to work out the way I planned, and my world is on tilt right now. I used my backup money to move, and, through a series of unrelated events, lost my backup income as well, leaving my wallet really thin right now. I lost my time and space for a clear head and creative pursuits in the stress of planning, packing, moving and unpacking, and trying to find a sublet for my now empty but still under lease old apartment. Part of me is screaming to go out and do what I know I can, which is get a job, a grown up job, back in my career field, and cope with this stress by falling back on the security of a steady paycheck, 401k and health insurance. The trouble is, having a fall-back option means that, in these situations, you always... fall back. And the joyful stuff gets shunted to the back burner. Again.
My decision to quit my job was huge. HUGE. Going off the grid is not easy for me. I've always been a person who finds security in a routine, in a controlled environment and knowing what comes next. I'm a girl with a plan.
Except, right now, I'm not. I met someone new the other day, and I didn't really have an answer to the question "what do you do?" HUGE. I want to go to film school. I want to direct another show. I want to make t-shirts and sit in Union Square all day and sell them. I want to freelance. I want to write a novel. I want to get my MSW. I want to get a clinician's license and do private-practice therapy. I want to create street-art. I want to open a cookie bakery. I don't want there to be limits on what I can do, and I don't want to fall back.
Still, there are bills to be paid.
I don't know what I'm actually going to do right now, but I know that I can't not write about it. I've missed writing about it, and I have thought, at several points over the last year, that I wanted to re-initiate but the recap seemed too overwhelming.
At this point, I feel like... fuck the recap. I'm here, I have no idea what is coming next, and I'm stupidly excited and stupidly terrified at the same time. I forgot, though, that this is what growing feels like.
Nice to see you, friends, and stay tuned. I fall. But I get up again. Like Madonna. Over and Over.
¶ 10:25 PM 0 comments
