Prescience
I love this little spot in Key West right beside the Hemingway House. I always figured that when I get married, it should be at the Chapel by the Sea in West Palm Beach. But this is nice too. Being surrounded by three dozen six-toed cats at the southernmost garden altar in the country wouldn’t be a bad alternative. 🙂
I didn’t want to blog about my unplanned job search here, but I can say officially that I’m going to be freelancing. The pay sucks to start. But for the first time in, oh, three years now, I’m REALLY excited about it. I can dust off my brain and use it again. Yay!
Moreover, the only person responsible for charting my growth and progress is yours truly. The only mood swings, weight fluctuations and/or access to barbituates my future is dependent upon are mine.
And it has come up again and again, “So when are you going to do your own newsletter?”
I took a hiatus from the markets to become, oddly, a marketer. So I’m kind of out of touch with domestic assets. But I’ve been glued to MSNBC for a week. (When my mother doesn’t steal the remote and switch the channel to Kathie Lee and Hoda. Barf and sigh.) And it’s just like when I check in on “Young and the Restless” — same characters that have been on there since I was in college … same lack of a plot … just a few more marriages and divorces and kids but overall you can pick up the story pretty quickly.
Anyway, the freelance life. I’m not worried (yet) about my own financial future. Sure I can deplete my wee slush fund pretty easily between chauffeuring my mom all over town for appointments that I have to pay cash for, not to mention life’s little essentials. (Like new clothes. lulz) And maybe some health care for me since I will jump off my balcony if I don’t have access to anti-anxiety meds. (Which I’m taking every two days now. Fucking fuckers fuck fuck FUCK.)
What I’m hoping is that my freelance gigs can become super-lucrative so that I can tell The Man to fuck off for the long run, or else I get a full-time job that doesn’t injure my brain and I can keep up the assignments on the side.
What would be ideal is to do a split shift at a full-time job, so I can spend two or three hours on the freelance and not have to drag my ass home after a long day at the office and THEN have to start my other assignments. I know me. I never did my homework in college and I certainly don’t do it as an adult. When I go home, seriously, fuck the world. Facebook, blog reading and bedtime. Anything else is just a nuisance.
And I never want to be in this position again, of wondering where the money will come from. Multiple streams of income, people. Learn it, live it and learn to love it. I’m lucky not to have kids so that I can do it all, even though I’ve always used the excuse of having Mom underfoot as a reason why I couldn’t.
The few months I was able to pay for two apartments — and ask me how much I want THAT five grand back right now — I was SO productive at home. I had an office with its own bathroom. I worked many late nights in there. It was for the full-time gig at the time, but it was so nice to leave the dark, depressing, roach- and ant-filled office and have a view of the ocean to inspire me while I monitored online classrooms and edited their crappy copy.
This apartment is big but it’s too small for the two of us. And she ain’t going anywhere, let’s face it. I need separate floors if I want to get any freelance work done. Shit, I need separate states. I can’t even blog without 65 interruptions and then I get a “You’re so mean!” when I finally snap and ask her to let me write already.
I’ve been thinking about getting her set up here and then moving to another state for a job. I don’t want to leave Florida but I may have no choice with one of the things I’m pursuing.
Just what I need — another move. Oy.
But if I could get her a shanty down here and get myself a studio loft somewhere else, I’d have Florida to come back to whenever I want it.
I just wish she were independent, you know? That she wouldn’t be sitting in the house six months between visits, waiting for me to take her to Publix or Wallyworld. Even when she lived downstairs, she sat there with no A/C running even though it was hot as balls, so I wouldn’t have to pay for utilities. Which, while well-intentioned, was just stoopid.
I don’t know. I’m really doing the “Let Go and Let God” thing here. Which can probably also be referred to as laziness or denial. But I’m so NOT unhappy about my unintentional freedom. I just want to try to enjoy it as much as I can (although having all this time to shop and try new restaurants SUCKS when the financial kitty is hemorrhaging without it).
I was talking to a new friend not too long ago. She said that I was going to come out on top … even higher than I ever was. And anyone would be a fool NOT to place their bets on me.
I guess that means I’ll turn out OK. If enough people believe it, it has to be true, right?
As one of my boys just told me, stay tuned. My five-year plan may not unfold exactly as I expected, but that’s not to say it won’t work out eventually. I never did plan the near-term. But if that’s what gets me to the paradise I seek, I’m willing to give up temporary wants for the happily ever after I can’t live without. …