But it's not just that. This blog sometimes feels like that friend you haven't written to in awhile. You really want to be in touch. You're thinking about that person and wishing you could just sit down and talk, like you used to in the old days. But now so much shit has happened, and there's that one email from a month ago that you never even answered—you're such a dick—and the task of capturing everything you've been feeling and wanting to say is hopelessly gargantuan at this point, and you think...
I have to, have to finally write [him/her/that post] this week.
And that never happens, because you waded out a little too far, and now the waves keep crashing, one after another, a new one towering ahead just as you've managed to catch your breath from the last one.
So you pick the easy things. You fall in love with a hibiscus plant at the Home Depot (not Home Depot, THE Home Depot), a store you used to vaguely recognize as the place your dad likes before it became a prime destination for you. You decide you must adopt the lonely hibiscus displayed way in the back because it looks like a full-on sunset in five petals, and even though you don't live in the tropics, what's so bad about pretending to for a summer and then bringing the thing inside for the winter? You just need the huge ceramic pot and the fertilizer and the specially draining soil...
When everything was still frosted over, you said goodbye to your office and set about building your own business as an army of daffodils marched into the garden, early this year because they were fooled into it by humans, and they reminded you that soon the days wouldn't be so dark.
You'd always wanted to do your own thing, but you'd been afraid to. Plus, you never had an impetus, until life gave you an impetus, along with a new gig that let you set some of your own terms.
You retrieve some items from your collection to play on the turntable that Sir UM got for the house. The records you have are deep. Like almost comically deep, as things stood on April 2. Bootlegs and side projects, collectibles.
Even though I've emailed myself some Feelings and tried to draft posts, I still don't have the words to address it, and lord knows no one needs me to, given just how much has been said about it.
So, outside of work, it's picking the low-hanging fruit. It's gazing excessively at plants and nail polishes. Finishing out the school year doing lunch-hour reading with a fifth-grader friend. Making dinners and sometimes desserts for me and Sir UM, who is currently doing his own incredibly hard thing.
We look at rescue dogs online, mentally adopting them, getting ready to maybe one day do it for real. We go to Philadelphia so I can watch my college singing group's amazing spring show and visit with old friends.
But see, all of this is taking place within a new framework, a freelance one where every hour has to be accounted for. In the new world, there's no "slow day." No paid hours chatting by the coffee maker or mooning over terrible world events (so many terrible events), no bank credit while you run to the doctor, or go on vacation.
There's just billable, or not billable. For example:
Billable
- The daytime hours doing assigned writing in my sunroom with good coffee, yay
- The weeknight hours spent interviewing a coal expert in Australia or a conservationist in Indonesia, alright
- The time I spend researching and reporting on topics largely of my own choosing, thank you
Not Billable
- The daytime trip downtown to meet a friend for coffee, heygoodtoseeyou
- The hours spent looking at Prince-related stories, stopitnowstopit
- Yard breaks, justgoingoutsideforasecond
No complaints. I like working on assignment. I like making the deadlines, helping people out. And it's probably a good thing that I now have to think about my time in a much more granular, purpose-driven way. Sometimes, yes, I miss paid vacation days. but wouldn't trade it for anything. The upshot is, every hour is billable to something. Your livelihood. Your loved ones. Your sanity. Your soul. Remember that's always true, whether you're freelance or not: Every hour is billable.
Music: "Same Ol' Mistakes"
