Sep
14
I feel like I know an awful lot about celebrity news lately. Maybe that’s because I am filing three—yes, THREE—articles per day on celebrity news right now. Which is really sort of a fun and, believe it or not, valuable writing exercise. I can be as silly as I want, but I also need to do legitimate research, include relevant links and photos, and stay on top of what’s current. It’s a fast-paced gig that’s teaching me a lot about making my time as efficient as possible.
It’s challenging and fun. I’m enjoying myself quite a bit over there.
I’m incredibly grateful for the opportunity, because it’s this particular column for The Stir that allowed me to fully move into freelance. For me to leave Workplace, I had to create a predictable salary situation for myself. It wasn’t enough to hope I could get by on feast-or-famine corporate writing gigs, I needed the stability of a certain amount of monthly work.
I tell you that because I’ve had so many wonderful, supportive comments on this life change, and I keep hearing what a brave choice it was. It wasn’t brave, you guys.
I’ve been wanting to leave Workplace for years. Years. That’s how long I’ve been complaining about needing a change, but I couldn’t find my way out of it. It took this long to find a job that was a good fit for me, where the people are awesome to work with, where I can get it done without having to pay for daycare.
That’s the thing that made it so hard, up until now. If I wanted to find another job outside the home, it had to pay exactly what Workplace paid, or more. I couldn’t earn a penny less without our daycare costs overwhelming us. I couldn’t NOT work, even if I wanted to, because we can’t afford to live on one salary.
It’s a bullshit deal for a lot of people in this country. I don’t have anything intelligent to say about it, really, except that the system is truly fucked. Most of us need two salaries to get by. If you need two salaries and you have young children, you need to pay for daycare, because most companies still won’t let us work from home. And daycare costs are astronomical.
It’s a trap. It’s a goddamned trap that keeps people in shitty soul-draining jobs. Just like healthcare. Just like mortgages, when you live somewhere like Seattle.
If I have one overarching goal for my family for the future, it’s that we don’t get bogged down by the machine of our economy, because you know what, the machine is broken. Life isn’t like it used to be, and I don’t think we’re ever going back. Houses won’t be the investments they once were. Jobs won’t provide the same security. 401(k)s won’t save us. It’s a lie to believe that the more you have, the happier you’ll be. All you’ll be is held in place, unable to make a move.
I want my children to have the freedom to do whatever they want for a living. I want them to dig ditches if that makes them happy. I want them to be able to choose a new path if the one they’re on isn’t working. I want them to live by something other than money. I want their definition of success to be entirely their own.
So I guess if that’s what I want, that’s how I need to live. I hope I’m finally heading in the right direction.
Sep
12
Last week was awesome. It really was. I could not be more convinced this was the absolute right change for our entire family. Everyone is happier now, for a great variety of reasons.
But I had this weird feeling on Friday that’s kind of hard to describe. I felt kind of . . . lost at sea, I guess. And part of that was expected, because everything is so new right now. Every single routine I had is gone, and I’m sort of blundering around trying to figure out when the best time to shower is and where the best places to take the kids are and how to write the kind of articles that will make my editor happy and so on and so on.
This is all good stuff. Great stuff.
It’s just that I don’t really recognize this new me, yet. In the blink of an eye I went from being someone who’s always worked outside the home to a stay at home mom who homeschools. And it’s not that I’m uncomfortable with those roles, exactly, it’s just—god, I don’t even know. I’m puttering around the kitchen when my husband gets home, putting dinner together and encouraging my kid to tell his dad about what we learned today, and I think, is this all I’ve got to talk about?
It doesn’t make sense, really. What did I have to talk about before? How shitty my commute was? Some stupid thing that happened at work that made me even more resentful and unhappy? Some video I saw on the internet from my hours of being glued to a fucking desk all day long? What kind of contribution is that?
Well. Still.
I decided to join a local Crossfit gym. I think it will help to have my own thing a few nights a week, being around people and reclaiming some of the fitness I’ve lost over the summer. I think it will help with this feeling that I’ve faded, somehow. Become harder to see. Even though I’m more present than I’ve ever been before. Even though I can already feel my relationship with the kids getting stronger and better. Even though I’m happier and more fulfilled.
After years of weathering—and actively seeking out—big changes, you’d think I’d know by now that nothing can really change who you are as a person. I don’t need to worry about disappearing, being replaced by someone else, someone I don’t know. But I think that’s it, that’s what’s creeping around the edges.
Ridiculous, I know.
(Still.)
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