(no subject)
so here's the breakdown.
in the spring, i signed on to be mostly full-time with 2 clients. eventually, it grew into 3 clients. that situation lasted for approximately four months, before they started pulling hours here and there. by october, they were pretty much part time clients. and at the start of november, they told me they didn't really have work for me anymore.
that whole situation was emotional, stressful, and valuable. emotional because my sense of worth has historically been tied into my job(s); stressful because no one likes losing income; and valuable because it forced me to develop a thicker skin. it wasn't an easy process, but i worked through it, and in the end i made peace with not working. i allowed myself to trust other people, and i was ok with waiting until 2009 to generate new work opportunities. i accepted a bad situation, and i accepted the need to make the most of it. that's pretty huge, for me.
the week leading up to thanksgiving turned all that self-discovery around on its head. all three of my original clients referred me to other people, and all those referrals panned out at the exact same time. i spent the few days before thanksgiving juggling new client meetings, scheduling snafus, and pondering why everyone wanted tuesday.
let me be clear: i am not, in any capacity, complaining about having new work. i am happy to be a productive member of society once more. i am counting my blessings, and i am grateful for these opportunities. i am conscious of good things happening, and committed to doing a good job.
that being said, all this has seriously fucked with my head. i had just made peace with, and started looking forward to, not working, and then BOOM! my game face had to be shoved back on. an episode of House MD comes to mind, where wilson tells a man he is not, in fact, dying of cancer, and the man is upset rather than jubilant. it takes time and energy to truly come to terms with a bad situation, and a rapid reversal of fortune, while wonderful, can make all the hard emotional work feel... trivial. and no one likes their unhappiness trivialized.
so here i sit, feeling like a jackass for ever being upset in the first place (isn't hindsight a wonderful thing?), feeling guilty for not being ecstatic about having more work, and feeling lousy for letting the first two feelings settle down in the first place. what a petty bundle of asinine-ness.
love kittie
in the spring, i signed on to be mostly full-time with 2 clients. eventually, it grew into 3 clients. that situation lasted for approximately four months, before they started pulling hours here and there. by october, they were pretty much part time clients. and at the start of november, they told me they didn't really have work for me anymore.
that whole situation was emotional, stressful, and valuable. emotional because my sense of worth has historically been tied into my job(s); stressful because no one likes losing income; and valuable because it forced me to develop a thicker skin. it wasn't an easy process, but i worked through it, and in the end i made peace with not working. i allowed myself to trust other people, and i was ok with waiting until 2009 to generate new work opportunities. i accepted a bad situation, and i accepted the need to make the most of it. that's pretty huge, for me.
the week leading up to thanksgiving turned all that self-discovery around on its head. all three of my original clients referred me to other people, and all those referrals panned out at the exact same time. i spent the few days before thanksgiving juggling new client meetings, scheduling snafus, and pondering why everyone wanted tuesday.
let me be clear: i am not, in any capacity, complaining about having new work. i am happy to be a productive member of society once more. i am counting my blessings, and i am grateful for these opportunities. i am conscious of good things happening, and committed to doing a good job.
that being said, all this has seriously fucked with my head. i had just made peace with, and started looking forward to, not working, and then BOOM! my game face had to be shoved back on. an episode of House MD comes to mind, where wilson tells a man he is not, in fact, dying of cancer, and the man is upset rather than jubilant. it takes time and energy to truly come to terms with a bad situation, and a rapid reversal of fortune, while wonderful, can make all the hard emotional work feel... trivial. and no one likes their unhappiness trivialized.
so here i sit, feeling like a jackass for ever being upset in the first place (isn't hindsight a wonderful thing?), feeling guilty for not being ecstatic about having more work, and feeling lousy for letting the first two feelings settle down in the first place. what a petty bundle of asinine-ness.
love kittie