Reflection

At some point in the past four years, I forgot how important it is for me to keep a daily journal.

It's been a really strange year for me on so many levels. So many jarring transitions, so many new things to explore, so much stimuli to distract me. My enthusiasm for my projects come in spurts, and I'm usually burnt out on them by the time the stream runs dry. This isn't entirely normal for me, and it doesn't lead to sustainable outcomes. I've tried a lot of ways to counter this -- making a set of daily rules to follow, writing numerous to-do lists every day, keeping my spaces clean enough to think in -- but nothing stuck. And lately, I've been experiencing really strange emotional outbursts in which I get entirely too upset about things that have never bothered me so much before. I was right to think the two are related.

Then, I had the bright fucking idea to open up that old notebook and scratch some real words out, breaking a streak of writing largely for posterity or publication. I began my first entry by apologizing to the notebook for mistreating it in the past; for coming to it only when I need to find something or out of desperation, for making it my permanent foul-weather friend. Then, I promised to come to it every day, regardless of the weather, so I could begin to forge a map of my good and bad patterns and hopefully learn what the hell my problem is.

That was a week ago. Reading through the entries, I see sentences on paper that have been too easy to ignore in my subconscious. Writing them out has done something remarkable to my grasp of reality, and this afternoon, I remembered that it has a long history with me. I used to do this back when I was 10 years old, long before I needed to map out my subconscious hang-ups, and I just kept doing it until...well, about four years ago, I guess... and I've never really stopped doing it long enough to realize how much I needed it.

It's like meditation. It's where I get to be totally honest with myself and not have to face any ensuing reactions, but in writing out an honest description of my reality, I'm forced to physically etch the scenes into existence -- it has the effect of cement. After they're written, they won't be scratched out or erased, and every time I flip back on them, I will see the same portrait of a single frame from my life that I forged into existence through the act of writing it down. It's powerful, man.

If a life unexamined is not worth living, then a notebook and a pen might be my mirror of choice.  

Efficiency

Seems all I've been doing lately is being productive.

Today, I woke up and decided I was going to make body sprays out of essential oil combinations and sell them to a local eco-friendly boutique. I stopped by the store to check it out, promptly came home and started fucking around with scents, filled five sample bottles for the owner to try out. But before I left the store, the girl behind the desk asked me what the name of my business was, and I said I didn't have one yet...so I came up with one as I was tweaking fragrance ratios. In an attempt to cut out every expense possible in this venture, I skipped buying labels, and instead carved a logo into a rubber stamp, painted it with acrylics, and stamped it onto squares of old Whole Foods bags. Glued labels on the bottles with puzzle glue, came up with names for my scents, and marked them accordingly. Realized an Etsy shop might make me appear more legit, so I did that -- wrote descriptions and ingredient lists for all five sprays, took an iPhone picture to load with it. So tomorrow, I will drop off the five sample bottles to the local eco-boutique with my Etsy URL somewhere in there, and I might make some money.

I got a lot done today, but it doesn't feel like enough. A few weeks ago, I put in my notice at my day job, partly to light a freelance fire under my ass and partly because I was fed up with the management there. By the end of last week, I started to freak out, on cue. It didn't matter that I got paid for my first two writing jobs under the umbrella of my very own PR business last week, nor did it matter that I got a lump sum check on Friday for a few articles I wrote for That Blasted Magazine. Didn't matter that I paid rent early and went on a random, three-day vacation with my doting boyfriend.

Why? Because this is a crossroads. It's not that I'm standing at the crossroads, afraid to take a step in any direction -- I've already made my move, and I know it's the right one. I'm afraid of something, though. I don't know if it's just my natural tendency to want to stare at the forks in my life long enough to write something sentimental about them, because I didn't do that this time. Is it fucking with me?

The other reason could be that I'm not sure I can pull off a full-time freelance career. That seems off, though, because I honestly have a lot of confidence in myself, as far as that goes. Maybe I'm pressing my panic button too hard and too often -- when I go full-panic mode, lucrative ideas start falling out of my brain uncontrollably. I write them all down in no order whatsoever, spraying them and all their details out haphazardly, until they pile up so high that I can't possibly execute them all. Then, I feel imprisoned by them; but they're not locked away safely at work -- they're just downstairs, in the garage, waiting for me.

I don't think this has much to do with me doubting my abilities as a freelancer. I think it has a lot more to do with how shitty my freelance career can look sometimes. When I'm standing neck-deep in a million scatterbrained to-do lists that might all add up to one full-time freelance career, one full-time freelance career looks like a life of hell.

I know the rest of my life doesn't have to look like that -- it's a matter of setting feasible deadlines, organizing my time better, and thinking about one job at a time. It just so happens that I'm terrible at those three things -- the things that allow someone to be their own boss. The crossroads I recently came upon wasn't a freelance career threshold so much as it was the part where I chose to grow up -- to be my own boss.

I hope I don't end up as both the asshole boss and the shitty employee, all in one body...because that sure as shit is what this feels like right now.