In which I flail around a bit more because apparently I’m a bit of a moron.
When you’re fourteen, you go to high school. That’s just what you do; everybody knows this. When you’re eighteen, you go to college. After college, you go to work and strive to pay off your student loans.
Eventually, you meet someone and form an alliance that involves bodily fluids at the least, and generally laundry and motor vehicle titles as well.
If you’re a breeder, you then proceed to breed. The expectation is so pervasive that you probably take a few stabs at it even if you don’t really want to. It’s just what you do.
After that it’s less clear what’s supposed to happen, or when, until the age of 65, at which point you’re supposed to be able to stop working. Beyond accumulating objects and thickening dramatically about the middle, there really isn’t a very clear action plan for people between, say, 30 and 65.
Hi! My name is Mush, I’m 41, and I don’t know what I’m supposed to be doing!
I’m freaking out because I’m divorced with debt and no assets, and I have no job, no savings, no retirement fund, no car, no belongings, and no health insurance. A quick look at my UI paperwork confirms that I am mere months away from becoming a financial burden on my family/society. I have a lot of debt. I have no great skills or talents beyond a quick mind and a decent singing voice, and neither of those things have ever particularly made me much money.
I guess I’m supposed to be working a day job, engaging in hobbies on the side, and saving money for my old age. Sadly, I am not particularly good at this, and require many and varied vacations to keep me sane.
I am of a generation that thinks it should be happy more than responsible.
Right now, I’m having a crisis. I’m wondering if I should move so that I can find a day job… except that I don’t really want to move. Hell, I don’t even really want a day job – I want income. I have friends who fill my head with talk about doing music for a living. I have the idea that maybe I’m not finding a day job because it’s time for me to make money some other way. I have years and years of exposure to alternative ways of thinking that tell me sometimes it’s important to follow happiness rather than logic. I also live in a culture full of self-indulgent fuck-ups, so I have to consider that maybe the happiness-before-all-else approach lacks depth and creates debt. I also have a heart full of doubts about the kind of person I actually am because it seems to me that if I were the kind of person who lived in the city and gigged a lot, I’d already be doing that and clearly I’m not. I haven’t lived in a city for a looooong time. Honesty compels me to admit that I want to think of myself as a city girl, but I am not, in actual point of fact, able to call myself a city girl. Anyway, blah blah blah, I need to figure out if I’m going to stay here or go somewhere else, and to that end here are some bullet points, because who doesn’t love bullet points?
I should stay here because:
- I can afford to pay off my debt and travel. Well, when I have a job, that is.
- I’m in a good band, with good gigs lined up. I’m gaining recognition.
- I have friends, family, community.
- As the childless spinster in the family, it’s basically my duty to be here for G’ma.
- There’s no good reason to throw out the life I just spent the last three years building.
I should move away because:
- There’s no work here.
- There is greater chance of doing more music in a major metro area.
- Challenge. Pace. Exposure. Art! Culture!
- The life I’ve built here is common and can be duplicated pretty much anywhere, really.
I think that I don’t want to move away, but I can’t tell if I sincerely don’t want to move away or if I’ve convinced myself of the overwhelming difficulty of doing so and/or the likelihood of my failing to accomplish anything but abject poverty and fatigue.
In other words, am I failing to appreciate what I’ve got here? Am I romanticizing city life?
Yes, and yes. I’m playing four blues festivals this summer, and I’m meeting lots of great players as I get around more. I can get any old job if I have to, and it’s not like I’ve ever really been career-oriented anyway – if I was, I’d have a better skill set by now.
In the city I’d be bitching about loneliness, commute times, and constant poverty. Cities are fun when you vacation there; when you live there it’s high rent, late busses, and so much social churn that it takes a great deal of time and effort to meet the right people. You’re working 40 hours a week just to cover rent and utilities and your fucking debt settlement program, and you find that every week you’re a little more tired and a little less likely to go out and meet musicians. (When I lived in San Francisco, everyone I did meet, on those rare occasions when I had the energy to go out, was just trying to save up enough money to move away.) If you lack discipline, you end up buying all that cute shit you see all over the place to pad your nest with, and you never take another vacation again. Five years later, you still have no equity, no savings, and you could have stayed in your grandmother’s attic for $150 a month and at least gotten to play some blues festivals. Your boyfriend is still a stoner because all of your boyfriends are stoners, you’re like a goddamned stoner magnet, and don’t forget that wherever you go there you are.
Or maybe not. Maybe you move to the city, get a job, meet awesome people, and have a gig in a couple of months. Maybe you’re so engaged and challenged and invigorated that you don’t actually just hole up in your apartment when you’re not doing your day job, maybe you finally blossom because you have access to the things you need. Maybe you finally meet a nice vegetarian Hindu boy, or a reasonable facsimile thereof. Maybe it’s rural and small town living that makes you so weird, and your gut desire to get back into the city is a real impulse and not a daydream and it’s just a goddamned shame that it’s taken you this long to even be able to seriously consider it.
Being alone means that nothing keeps me anywhere; I could try anything I wanted.
Of course, there’s the question of where. Portland? Seattle? Chicago? DC? New York? And the question of how much: I don’t have any savings right now. I could probably move to Portland on a couple hundred bucks. New York would require, what, fifteen hundred minimum? Not to mention that not all cities are created equal; after you’ve been to Chicago and New York, most left coast cities barely qualify for the description.
Except I don’t think I want to move. I want to go on an extended vacation, but I can’t afford to because I don’t have a goddamned job.
And then there are the things I know about myself: I’m not particularly driven. When I have the time, space, and resources to do stuff, I don’t do it. One can only blame lack of stimulation so much before she has to admit she’s fucking lazy by nature. Right now I’m not getting my CCNA and I’m not working out and I’m not playing guitar and I’m not writing and I’m not meditating. I didn’t do those things when I was a housewife, I didn’t do those things the last time I was unemployed and had free time, and why would I be any different somewhere else?
But there’s no work here and I need a job! I have bills to pay!
Gawd! I am having such a hard time figuring out what I want to do, and where I want to do it. I couldn’t possibly waffle any more than I am. Why do I have to be such a fucking Libra all the time?!
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Combine “vacation” and “job” and go to work as a singer on a cruise line.
Hmm. Good idea. Solves the whole rent/utilities thing nicely. -m
Once again I must remind you that you do have at least one terrific, pay-you-money-for talent.
Writing.
Buy yourself the latest edition of Writers Market from Amazon and start using that incredible talent you have for making written things clear and interesting. Consider packaging some of your blog stuff into a portfolio to email to mags and papers as column worthy. Some people make a pretty good living off of their writing. I can’t see any reason why you couldn’t make lots of money as a freelancer.
I don’t know anyone who supports themselves as a freelance writer, and there are a jillion decent writers out there competing for scraps. Plus I lack passion about it. -m
Wow! I was just coming over to the comment section to say the EXACT same thing Jim just said. If whassername can make money off the mediocre “Eat,Pray,Love” what’s to stop you from making some kind of money? Of course, the publishing world is in the toilet right now, but somebody is getting paid something somewhere.
You support yourself writing, but you’re the only person I know who does. My other author friends are on disability, kept by a partner, and have a day job, respectively. -m
I’ve been feeling similarly lately. I’m gunna be 30 in July, and I have a shitty job that pays peanuts, no savings, some debt, and billz out the wazoo and I’m single. Plus I’m sick of what I’m doing for work … and have no motivation to find a job in the same field. But no training or experience to find a job in any other field. Do I go back to school? Do I just pretend I’m happy for the next 50 years or do I make some sort of leap of faith and hope I land on my feet? Blahh so much easier to be miserable and lazy! 😀
I used to be an executive secretary, and in my early 30’s decided I fucking hated being one, so I took an entry-level job in a whole ‘nother industry and now I have a killer resume if you’re looking for a NOC technician. In other words, you are not too old to change career paths. The hard part is figuring out what the fuck you want to do for money. Right now I’m thinking, “Am I too old to get a cruise ship gig?” -m
You could always try the cruise ship think if you can get work. I have a friend that has drummed all over the world on a ship, and he loves it. Free room & board, free food and you can save a bunch of $$. If you don’t like it … then don’t take the next gig. It’s a sweet life!
I could probably get one. It’s just that I need professional head shots and professional video with professional sound in order to apply. *sigh* -m
DC’s a nice city, and it’s close to me, so we could visit. But if I had to live somewhere else, I’d choose Toronto. Ain’t no city in the world like Toronto. It rocks, baby!
Yeah, this hasn’t been terribly helpful, I know, but I’m kinda floundering in self doubt and confusion myself most of the time recently, so who the hell am I to offer any advice anyway?
Best o’Luck.
HUGS…
Well, close to you isn’t hardly a deterrent. The movie marathons we could enjoy! …Yeah. Floundering. -m
It’s like you read my mind. Freaky.
We’re really interested in Chicago, but are pretty sure a move there would plunge us into unrelenting debt for the rest of our lives. Unless I could find work there … which is more likely than me finding work here. Maybe. We’ve thought about trying to sell almost everything we have … but the thought of starting over at 41 is paralyzing sometimes. Part of me just wants a garden and to be able to cook dinner every night and not have to fight public transportation or ever shovel snow again. And part of me is screaming I’m too young to be in this bumblefuck town. For the last year, I have been horribly, horribly conflicted. I don’t even know what would make me happy. I’m terrified of staying; I’m terrified of leaving. I have anxiety almost every day over the “life is for being happy, NO! life is for being responsible” conundrum. It’s impossible to know what to do. I have always gone with my gut, and it’s worked out every time. But for some reason, and maybe it’s just this miserable economy, I’m not getting a clear signal from the universe via my visceral antenna. Husband and I are going to road trip this summer. See what we think. I don’t know if we’ll come back any smarter, but I know he’s jonesing for a change. I think we’re both tired of owning a house and all the effort we have to put into that. It’s an old place, and something is always going wrong and costing bucks. Sometimes I think I’d rather throw rent at someone else and not have the hassles. Garden in containers. (I know that sounds like a complaint – it’s really not; I’m grateful for my house but sometimes…) I would love to get to a place in life where I’m happy no matter where I am. Part of me knows happiness is not about location. But that part of me doesn’t talk to the other personality that wants museums and music and fabulous dining and tons of new friends. This shit is HARD. I completely feel your relocation pain. It may be a Libra thing, but I think it’s more a 41 thing.
OMG, don’t even get me started. Home ownership sucks, IMO. I hated being a home owner. It’s expensive, and if your house isn’t brand fucking new it’s a constant pain in the arse keeping things working. Eff that! I don’t like to tinker with stuff in that way, no sir, not at all. And on the other hand, happiness is very much about location. I really don’t like shoveling snow. -m
God, we are so nearly the same person. I’ve been contemplating my own laziness a lot lately. I used to just chalk it up to the depression, but I think it’s more pervasive than that. I think I just don’t have the drive to be important in the ways that everybody else values, and I’m slowly realizing that that’s okay. Yeah, maybe I’ll find a day job somewhere and cull what happiness I can from writing and gardening and taking care of whoever decides to snatch me up, and yeah, I’ll never be a millionaire, and yeah — that’s fucking a-okay with me.
“Your boyfriend is still a stoner because all of your boyfriends are stoners, you’re like a goddamned stoner magnet, and don’t forget that wherever you go there you are.” That sentence is the reason I love you.
Really? Really? I thought you were all organized and full of drive. You’re common too? I think I’m gonna cry a little. -m
Once my house sells, I’m going to go live in another dimension with my family (who will all be self-reliant, in a good way), only work on projects that I love to work on, have a variant commute (according to my whims), drink a beer or tea with lunch every day, stay up late, sleep in, still be up before the kids (and have probably 32 hours in a day), have a studio that I can mess up and keep clean – just the way I want it, and listen to good music.
Also, everyone will know their times tables and understand how to convert their own Excel 2007 files into something that Excel 2003 can read.
Wow! That is one HELL of a seller’s contract! Good luck unloading that house, girl! -m
I go through phases of uncommonhood. It’s just a growing realization that I’ve been pushing myself so hard for the last 8 years that I never stopped to reevaluate if my destination was still valid. Who knows anymore, you know?
I totally don’t know. -m