Today I had lunch with my all-time favorite former co-worker ever, Jess. It has come to my attention that the moment you find out you’re losing your job you become someone who lunches. I believe they call it “networking” in the grownup world. It’s weird. I’ve gone out for lunch more in the past three weeks than I have in the past two years. No lie.
Anyway, Jess is one of the best graphic designers I’ve ever had the pleasure to work with. We spent a lot of time today talking about careers and what we want and what we don’t want. She told me, “What I want the most is just to work with you again.” I nearly cried.
We also spent a lot of time talking about about freelancing and forgoing the chains of a regular 9-5. Everyone I know tells me that I should freelance because it’s just that easy to make enough money to feed and clothe myself and the cats. It is clear that everyone I know also has no idea how very undisciplined I am and that when given the choice I would probably spend the day in my underpants reading a book rather than drumming up business to keep a roof over my head.
But that’s probably something I can work on. I am positive Sister #2 is just itching to give me a two-hour lecture on setting goals and prioritizing. However, my biggest fear is that I’ll become a shut in. I’m pretty close to a shut in now, except for going to work and class.
Take tonight for instance. I came home, put up some words on Scrabulous (Sister #2 also delights in making me play Scrabble on Facebook and continually kicking my ass at it, because I suck at that game), put on some pajama pants, and settled into the La-Z-Grrl to watch the latest DeeVeRed episode of Dawson’s Creek where I promptly fell asleep.
I’m pretty sure that’s the textbook definition of 65-year-old shut in behavior.
in that grand life plan we all make when we’re 18, i really thought i’d be a freelance writer by now. i, too, struggle with discipline. and follow through. i’d be on the lam from assignments right now.
that’s not shut in behavior at all – shut ins don’t watch dawson’s creek.
–
but no buying the matlock dvd set.
Wait, wait, wait….this “everyone I know” deal doesn’t include me. I absolutely know how lazy you are 🙂
(I also know that you will be just fine because you’re the Supergenius and you always come up with a plan.)
I tried to freelance when I first left my job and had a really hard time w/ discipline. So, I, too, am going to differ from the masses. Be really honest with yourself on whether you have the discipline to work enough to pay the bills plus the extra social sec.,med. insurance, save for holidays/vacation, savings to cover all those clients that pay 90 days down the road, etc. (all the yucky blah blah that gets taken care of in corporate). I’m absolutely NOT saying you are not capable of it–just that YOU are the only one who knows yourself well enough to assess your self-discipline AND your comfort level.
I’m not a 65-year-old shut-in, and I think that sounds like a perfectly cromulent evening.
Okay, only because you lost your job will I give you this gift:
*sigh*
I said “irregardless” again today.
In front of a classroom of kids.
Apparently this is an actual sickness.
Did the kids bust a nut laughing? Because I am right now. You might need to go to the doctor, you could have some kind of tumor in the speech parts of your brain. I’m worried.
Of course the kids didn’t bust a nut; the half that were actually listening have no idea irregardless isn’t a word. I did, however, stop mid-sentence and correct myself. That would be after I started to laugh at myself. Or perhaps I cried. If I say it again (ever in my life) I’m going to start washing out my own mouth with soap.
I have freelanced this entire past year, and it took some getting used to. I found that I actually worked less hours at a 8-5 job, but now I can actually file blogging hours under “work.” The biggest expense for me wasn’t financial, but the extra time spent lining up projects and dealing with the accounting. After a while, even these tasks became almost second nature.
I worried about becoming a recluse as well, but compensate by making time to meet friends for lunch when possible and scheduling occasional work trips to break up the monotony (it helps when the business trips are music festivals).