August 31, 2001
I had been keeping in touch with an old colleague of mine and recently when I asked if she wanted to get together after work sometime, she replied, “After work? You don’t have an after work. You can do anything anytime. I’m not sure that our friendship can continue because I just don’t know how to react to you anymore. We’re not on the same wave length anymore. You’ve got freedom, time, no pressure. You’re happy and everything is easy for you. I just don’t know how to relate anymore.”
After reading that I was a little confused. Certainly she wasn’t talking about me, was she? Because that doesn’t describe me at all.
But then I looked at my situation from her perspective and how I saw things from the 9-5 world. It was then I understood; because I am passionate about what I’m currently doing, and because I only offer most of the good news (because for the first time ever, the good news is outweighing the bad) everything I do must seem easy. I suppose that’s a credit to me that I can make it seem that way, because the reality of it, is that it is all still a struggle. Only this time, I’m willing to be in it.
There’s still so much that I have to learn, so much I have to grasp. There’s issues that I tend to struggle every day with – like money. My art classes cost quite a bit, not to mention my supply list. I’ve been putting off buying the supplies because I have no idea how I will afford them when my class starts in October. Chris is starting back to school in September and I can see the power struggle over time for the computer already.
If I was in my 9-5 world, I could buy the Ibook that I want within one paycheque. Now, I have to save and wait. Instead of getting praise everyday for a great report I did or how I helped out, I’m getting rejection letters instead. Instead of taking my regular 9am break with the girls to talk, I work straight through on the computer, alone, until 2 in the afternoon. I have constant pressure to come up with wonderful lines of words for deadlines that have no give. I have insecurities about the quality of my work and my creativity. Sometimes this all seems surreal and I feel like I don’t fit in. Sometimes, it’s just all a little too hard.
But, to me, it’s all worth it. For the first time I feel that I am in an intimate struggle and that it is somehow beautiful and meaningful. I feel I’m finally apart of something rather than trying to distance myself from it. I feel like I have found myself again. I feel younger, happier, and I suppose despite all, more free. I’m excited so much more than I used to be and I finally feel like I have purpose. And I suppose that is why I seem to talk less and less about the struggle and frustrations and more and more about the excitement.
Because I understand you can’t have one without the other.