Not Tonight
I want so very much to sit back and completely lose myself in a book, and I realize that it's been years - years - fucking YEARS! since I've done that. Even when I just take an hour or so to read, it's never really more than a few minutes before my mind wanders from the page as I remember that "oh God, I don't know if I'm going to be able to pay the electricity bill this month, or "I haven't been to a doctor since I was still seeing a pediatrician." And then I begin to think about whether I'd done enough that day to make money, or if anything I'd done that day would make me money, and I consider all the things that I should be doing to make myself marketable enough that one day in the future, despite NEVER HAVING HAD AN ACTUAL JOB, somebody will actually fucking interview me for something, or publish something at a cost of more than seventy-five bucks. So until I'm not racked with panic and shame every day, I guess I don't read much, and I certainly don't do any of those extraordinary things, like buying a two dollar cup of coffee or riding a bus, that income would buy. Every day is a lost opportunity to do something simple, beautiful, and completely and utterly untenable.
My ex-boss once had the audacity to tell me that a decent job probably wouldn't make me happier, and that actually made me pause and wonder for a moment whether I do have higher standards than I let on. But while there are a great many things I want from my life and expect of myself, I've seen the profound difference between when I have four-hundred dollars in the bank at the start of a month and when I have two dollars. I've seen the improvements in my motivation and the quality of my work when I have just the barest modicum of stability and hope. And I can answer his accusation without uncertainty that, nope, a sustainable job is literally all that I need or have ever needed for the past FIVE YEARS.
My ex-boss once had the audacity to tell me that a decent job probably wouldn't make me happier, and that actually made me pause and wonder for a moment whether I do have higher standards than I let on. But while there are a great many things I want from my life and expect of myself, I've seen the profound difference between when I have four-hundred dollars in the bank at the start of a month and when I have two dollars. I've seen the improvements in my motivation and the quality of my work when I have just the barest modicum of stability and hope. And I can answer his accusation without uncertainty that, nope, a sustainable job is literally all that I need or have ever needed for the past FIVE YEARS.