Secrets and Lies.

Where the hell have I been? 

I have not been working on super-sekrit plans or on the lam from the mob or even traveling the world like my fauxbo neighbors.  I've been working.

Good, right?

Not really.

Last Tuesday night, in-between answering emails for one job and making phone calls for another and reminding myself that each extra second I was awake shaved another minute of sleep as I had to be up to work at the gym at 4:45am, I started to wonder when the last time I worked on a piece of writing.  Not a slack daily post, not a rumination on nerd-boy dating, not 140 characters in a row, but an actual piece of writing.  The outline for the book.  The rewrite on the script.  The new animated series.  Something that actually had to do with, y'know, the thing that I supposedly do, but hadn't done in...gulp.

But what was my choice, really?  I needed to stay on top of bills and we needed to do things like, y'know, eat.  I put this thought on repeat and let my brain do the rest of the work. Five minutes later I was in front of Will.

I need to quit one of my jobs, I told him.

So quit.

But then we can't pay bills.

But we'll figure it out, he promised me.

On the surface, all of the jobs are perfect part-time jobs - except the gym, although it's relatively easy and comes with the bonus of a free membership. I could cut down on my gym hours, work maybe once a week...

So do that.

I don't know, that's eighty dollars less a week.

And that's when it hit me.

I was being held hostage by eighty dollars a week.

Everyone has their own version of what failure feels like.  To me, it was to be held hostage by eighty dollars a week.  But the more i thought about it, the more I realized it wasn't that at all, but the idea that I half-assing it.  I had become the thing that I hate the most - the writer who doesn't write, the person with a goal who doesn't actually pursue it.

Will had said in our last chat that the one thing he wants is a quiet, anonymous, happy life.  I don't disagree, but I'd like that life to include things like creative endeavors, the ability to travel see our families more than once a year and a house, and actual house with a yard and electrical outlets and kitchen counters that aren't made of wood and no crazy packrat landlady and a parcel of fauxbos in the front yard.

So I'm using that eight dollars, that small parcel of financial breathing room to purchase myself some creative breathing room.  

What's the point of running the rat race if there's not a piece of cheese at the end?

Note:
Fauxbos = fake hobos, coined by BetheMarriage LIVE! viewer Ike.

I was looking for YouTube videos of hamsters running around in those ball things (or the American Gladiators in the Atlasphere) and came across this.  Enjoy!