Dear man in the hat,

I love you. Marry me?


Love,

Day

livelihood

I found another job, one that I really, really like. In fact, it seems almost too good to be true; I work from home--nestled between the huge east and south facing windows in my living room--I research, I write articles, and I get paid enough to live on. Probably. It's difficult to emphasize the awesomeness of this enough. I love researching, and the articles I'm writing are short enough that, so far at least, I never get bored of a topic. Writing thousands of words for publication every day is exciting, because I know that even without great editing, my writing skills are going up. As an added bonus, there's a good chance that a freelancing career could grow out of this.

My only concern is that I get tired. Instead of writing anything as fast as I possibly can, I try to write things I'd want to read. I love this. It's creatively and intellectually demanding, which is fun, but at a point you need the day to be over. I haven't figured out yet exactly how to set my workload. One of the things I love the most is that I work hard at it; I love the feeling of working hard, and well, and knowing that I'm contributing something real. The particular tech sector I've been working in for the past couple of years is something of a breeding ground for complacency.

Also, I'm terrified that this is too good to be true.


As a result of the new job and a couple of other windfalls, I've had a week or two of not worrying about money--not because I was so exhausted from worrying that I just gave up, but because there was actually money in the bank to pay the bills, and more besides. Or so it appeared. I do not remember a time like this in my life. Yes, I've saved money and paid the bills on time before, but I haven't done that and also spent money on things I needed, when I needed them. Having that taste of financial security is incredibly encouraging; the level of stress it removes from your life is amazing.

going on with me

This month is my twenty-sixth birthday. Twenty-six scares me a bit; your brain wiring is pretty much set by that age. I'm scared I can never teach myself to be happy, or to have a good working life. And I'm scared because I feel like I'm going to die young, a PTSD thing, I guess.

Besides fixing up the house, my struggles over the past year or so have basically amount to this: a) making enough money to live on, b) managing chronic pain, and c) fighting serious emotional/psychological problems related to repeated trauma and childhood neglect. I started working on the psychological stuff, and ran into financial barriers; I working on improving my physical health, and ran into financial barriers; lately I've been working on my finances, with the beginnings of good success.

Unfortunately, working--especially when you're laying the groundwork for better conditions in the long run--is really time consuming, and despite the relief that came from catching up with finances, physical and emotional health have started to slide. Physically, this culminated in injuring my back, which was surprisingly not bad. I talked to a doctor who was really encouraging about long term prognosis. I got time off work to rest, and drugs that will help me rest and recover faster. The day before the injury, I bought a punch card for ballet and yoga classes, so as soon as I'm ready, I'm set to start moving again in really healthy ways. I'm dealing with things better than before.

A lot of the emotional stuff comes down to time. I need to spend more time taking care of myself, particularly journaling and the like. I might be starting therapy again in the next couple of months, which will be overwhelming and time consuming, probably. I also think I need more/different friends.

I love the friends I have, and enjoy them a lot. However, I tend to put a lot of time into most of my friendships. If she's into gaming, I'll try gaming. If she's a stay at home mom, I'll hang out and talk while she gets dishes done. I read everyone's blog. That's how I'm used to doing most friendships. I'm fine with this because I get a lot out of these friendships. I give more time, but they reciprocate with different things; a steady stream of home-made food and a place to get away from my problems when I'm stressed out, or gorgeous handmade gifts that make me feel happy and loved when I look at them, or hundreds of enthusiastic niefling hugs.

I'm now busier, and lonely for certain things. I want to be listened to by someone who is really interested, and cares what's going on with me; that's part of why I'm writing this. I want more good conversation, and a certain amount of touch. I want company sometimes when I'm doing things that are fun and enrich my own life.

But that's all. Someone asked who filled this role for me in the past, and the answer is no one. I've never been this functional before. I've never needed my own time so much, or taken care of myself so well. I've never been able to say, I just need these things, but other than that, I'm good. It's always been triage. More functional than ever before may not be fancy, but it's not a bad place to stop and celebrate.

change

I'm growing up--facing the needs attached to the life I want to live, and trying to take responsibility for them. Like most workers of my generation, I often have two or three jobs. I--we--try to develop a resume, while not depending too hard on one source of cash. The freedom to sell ourselves to several buyers at once is often all the autonomy we have in our working lives.

The dignity of making choices about your own life hangs on the ability to quit, and quitting means you have to have a backup. So, we either live in fear of our jobs--putting up with sexual harassment, terrible working conditions, and a profound vacuum of respect and care--or we have a backup. That's how it works. The level of shit we are forced to put up with is directly proportional to the quality of our backups, and the quality of our backups is usually not good.

For socialists, playing the patchwork-livelihood card has other complications. A first world worker in an imperialist system, I'm privileged, but am I significantly privileged among first world workers? If so, what to do about it? I managed to escape my early twenties with good credit and virtually no debt. I'm better educated than some university graduates. I have a house. I'm single and childless. Like myself, most people I know who have options can trace this back to someone else's work, usually a husband or parent. There's no obvious, effective way to share these advantages around. . . you know, other than systemic change.

R E S P E C T,

I've been reading the blog of a dear friend who suggests that sometimes you need anger to re-affirm your self-respect. This idea makes me a little sad, because I think it has something to do with the sickness in our construction of masculinity. . . but I don't think he's wrong.

Thinking about it, I realized that I haven't had a lot of trouble respecting myself in my life, though I have had a lot of trouble liking myself, and often assume everybody else will too. I used to sacrifice a lot of things for my self respect. I believed adult human-beings (including myself) were basically undeserving, and I did my utmost to behave accordingly. Now that I'm some months in to my self indulgent/taking-care-of-myself phase, I've been giving some thought to what self-respect is going to look like for me, in the future.

I still believe that self-respect is basically about integrity*--about living in accordance to that which you most deeply believe, and not being ashamed of it. And I still believe that others will inevitably respond to self-respect by returning it. It can be terrifying to believe in the value of every human life. It's an enormous demand, because so many of us are treated so poorly, so much of the time. . . but an interesting challenge to contemplate.



*a word that gives me the creeps a bit, I think because I saw it misused so much for religious propaganda in young women's. Pooh.