Notes of the day
It's October 20 now and I still don't want to leave the house to work.
I'll leave the house to go pick up the kids. I'll go depart from my home to workout at the nearby gym we belong to. Oh, and grocery shop, to prevent those irritating dairy moment meltdowns when people realize there is nothing in the fridge to make their cereal wet.
But I don't want to leave the house to work. I want to work from home. Make money. Take care of dem babies, which really aren't babies anymore, being 10 and almost 12. Still, they need me around.
Hubby wants to me to get a job, any job, just bring in the damn money. Not to criticize, just paraphase. He's been more patient with me than I would be in his shoes.
I just want to write.
But herein lies the conflict. I think too much, therefore I screw up too much, therefore I don't write alot.
I've timidly started my own writing business. Copywriting. Business writing. Call it what you like, but don't call me for sales and marketing writing, because I don't do that.
I like writing things that illuminate a concept clearly, that switches on the exact same 60-watt light bulb above everyone's head. I don't want to sell, to persuade, to subliminally urge to pull out your wallet and hand over the cash.
Nope. I just want to inform, educate, and perhaps even enlighten every so often.
Now, how to go about doing that? Especially on subjects that won't bore me?
Normally, one would be urged to catalog one's interests. What do you like doing? What are your hobbies? What passions do you have?
That process doesn't work for me. I'm interested in everything. I find everything -- almost everything -- fascinating. Jungian psychology, web site design, orthomolecular therapy, Native American mythology, hybrid vehicles....it's all captivating.
I like learning for learning's sake, but trying to figure out what to do with it all and make a living from it, no less, that's the hard part.
I'm like a hamster on the exercise wheel where each rung is a subject of interest. I go round and round, loving every minute of hitting the different subjects in short, intense bursts but exhaust myself through the effort of going nowhere.
Then I wind up feeling like the world's ultimate failure. A bright and sensitive individual who can't seem to get past her own belly button.
I fear I'll lose interest in the subject matter if I commit myself to having it as my occupation. Then I'll be stuck in the same place where I've always managed to end up no man's land again: the "I hate my job" area.
I realize all this can happen because I've got a good husband who brings home the paycheck so I can tie myself up with angst over things not worthy of it. I take care of the kids, manage the house on a relatively good basis and have seen slow and steady success in bringing my son out of autism. Those things are all good.
But the vocation issue, that's the prickly burr in my life that just won't dislodge itself from underneath my saddle blanket. It's all tied in with that 'why would anyone be interested in what I have to offer' thing. Low self-esteem and all that unecessary garbage, whereever it came from.
I've got to get moving from this spot in life I've sunken into. Somehow muster up the energy to keep going forward, keep moving, a moving target is hard to miss, yadda yadda yadda.
Maybe the answer can be found in realizing that there is no one perfect job or calling out there for me.
That I can't think my way through it. I just have to do it.
That crafting my own way through this period in my life, creating my own business and my own livelihood are far more and away gifts to be treasured and enjoyed, not challenges to fear and face away from.
It's not a measuring stick of my lack. It's an opportunity to show me my worth.
Huh.
Guess I better get started then, yeah?
posted by A.M.Adams @ 10/20/2006 07:40:00 AM
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