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.
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.
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