Back on the J.O.B.

Picture this: Sunny summer morning, hot coffee in hand, I stroll across the street to the barnyard. Cross-legged on a hay-wagon, I  soak up the heat seeps into the valley. I feel free, I feel unfettered, I feel totally at peace.

This was two years ago. I had recently begun to pursue ceramics full time. This was a BIG deal for me. I answered to no one. I made my own schedule. I was relying solely on my own creativity. I was validated. It would take lots of work, but I was going to make it. In some ways I felt that I had made it already.

This past summer was a little different.

This past summer I spent the better part of a day virtually paralyzed by the fear that I had been exposing myself to toxins. And that these toxins might someday reach levels that could harm the unborn children that I might someday accidentally conceive.

This past summer wasn't really any fun.

It wasn't all quite that dramatic of course. Thankfully, I 'm unable to sustain that kind of paranoia for very long. But that peace that I had been feeling? Gone. And if this was where I had made it to then I had definitely taken a wrong turn somewhere.

It's a difficult state of mind to describe. And I still haven't quite sorted all of it out, but it was marked by confusion and frustration and the feeling of a special kinship between myself and Elizabeth Gilbert as she begins her journey in Eat Pray Love (me and the rest of the world apparently. What is with all of the angsty 30-somethings?). I was spending more time worrying about the marketability of my work than actually making it. I stared at the computer more and created less. I had allowed myself to become increasingly isolated and anyone who's seen The Shining knows where all work and no play lead. I had little routine. Rather than answering to no one, I felt like I now had to answer to everyone. I felt tethered. I felt weighed down. I felt claustrophobic. And all of a sudden I found myself deeply concerned with The Checklist.

You know The Checklist, it's that list you keep of accomplishments that you're supposed to make in your life. And it's kept on the same clipboard as The Time-line, which of course, tells you when you're supposed to have made them. Together, they tell you things like when you're supposed to be married, when you'll buy your first home, what kind of career you'll have, when you'll begin it and how long it will take you to climb the ladder. It doesn't include all of the pesky details like who you'll marry or why, or whether or not owning a home is really right for you. It doesn't take into account that your interests may change or that sometimes things happen beyond our control. It doesn't really concern itself with the life of life at all. It's simply a schedule. And the farther off schedule we get, the more disappointment we know to feel. In our circumstances, in the hand we've been dealt, in ourselves.

As it turns out The Checklist, or rather the realization that I was measuring myself against it, was the catalyst for me. Because this is one idea that I don't subscribe to. I know this. In my heart of hearts even. Life just isn't that linear. At least mine isn't. Nor do I want it to be.

So I made a change. I took a J-O-B. A get up in the morning and go to work -day in and day out- job type job. Somewhere where I can go and worry about something other than how much SEO I know, or how marketable my personality may be, or weather or not what I want to make is gonna be the same thing as what someone wants to buy. Somewhere where I can get out of my head and interact with honest-to-goodness people in the actually-actual-real-world. Somewhere Off of Owl Brook five days a week.

And it's true that I don't get to make my own schedule anymore. I have to fit my own business around the business of someone else. I have someone to answer to again.  But as a consequence I find that I actually feel less constrained. Freer. More like myself. My priorities have come back into focus and I'm reminded that I don't have to have the rest of my life figured out. And I'm no longer so concerned with making it somewhere. I'm just enjoying the ride.