Am I Going to Be Lazy For Life?

DISCLAIMER: I have been working pretty consistently since I was 16.

HOWEVER...

I have been out of work for a while.  First, I did take time off to help my Dad deal with his illness and to help the family out.  Okay that bought me a year.

Then I had the mourning period.  I told myself that I was going to allow myself the time to experience every bit of the mourning process.  I had spent my life covering things up by keeping busy with work and with other aspects of life.  Then we went to Hawaii to spread his ashes and it was going to be hard to tell an employer that I needed two weeks off for a family vacation.

But we came back four months ago.  And this month, in about three weeks, is the year anniversary of my Dad's death.  I can't believe it.

Sometimes I hear it in my boyfriend's voice, "What are you doing today?"

I heard traces of it in a friend's Facebook post the other day, "I'm jealous that you went to the spa for six hours while I was in meetings all day."  NOTE: The six hour spa trip was to decompress from a pretty heated (verbally violent) I had with a contractor that had swindled my Mom.

But I even hear it in my own head.  I haven't worked (with the exception of a three month teaching gig) since my Dad got sick.  As documented in this blog, I knew that once he got sick I wasn't going to work.  I knew it was the end.  No one wanted to admit it, but I honestly think I might have been the first person in my family to acknowledge that my Dad was going to die in short order.  It was just over a year.  If I hadn't been so certain, I wouldn't have decided that I was taking time off.  I had decided to take the rest of that year (2011) off.

Then I got the teaching job, and that turned out to be great because I discovered something new I loved to do and I could commute to Northern CA and get away from the stress of dealing with my Dad.  It was early enough that he didn't need constant care yet.  I decided not to apply for teaching jobs that year because I didn't know where my Dad would be and I didn't want to be away.  I knew I would never get the time back and at the time earning money seemed like a silly excuse to be away from my dying father.

And to be fair, I had a teaching job that I was up for and that felt really right for me.  I had applied and it was at Santa Clara, where I had taught before.  I remember thinking, "Oh, am I putting all of my eggs in one basket."  And I knew I was.  I knew that I was banking on this.  But it just felt like the Universe had sent me this opportunity and it was the right thing.  Even though I knew that they would have to fire the guy who had been there for years teaching in order to take me on.  I knew from Day One that it would be an uphill battle.  But I had written six syllabi for courses I thought I would be qualified to teach back in November of 2012 (after a visit there).  So it had MANIFESTATION written all over it.

And in some ways, I do still think that that opportunity was manifested.  But it might not have been manifested for me to have that particular job at that particular time.

I compare it to this:
When I met The Drummer, I felt a strong draw to him.  He was handsome, smart and charming.  He brought me my favorite wine on our first date.  You can go back and check that out...it was on July 11, 2011--the blog entry is probably around then.  Once we started dating (eight months after I broke up with The Ex) everyone started asking: Is he the ONE?

Seriously, I was nauseous from people asking me that question.  Is he the one?  Is he the guy?  Is he it?

I had stopped believing in "the One" after I broke up with my Ex.  I thought that dude was the One.  And we lasted five years and nine days.  But even after the break up, and after the revelations and discoveries about myself that surfaced (again documented here) I knew that my Ex was exactly the person who I was destined to be with from October 22, 2005 until November 1, 2010.  And I also knew that The Drummer was the person I was destined to be with then and I know that now two years later.  We always have said that we were lucky to find each other and have each other...as long as we're lucky to be together.  Either separated by life's circumstances or by death's.  I didn't know how long I would be lucky to be with him, but I knew that through him I had hope that there was life after my Ex.

So...I feel the same way about that job opportunity.  It wasn't the one.  But going through the process of sending in the application and standing firm in the solid ground of who I am as a person, an artist, a human being and a professor/teacher/mentor/guide, I have grown.  I am learning to stand in the truth of my experience and my expertise.  I would have made a garden grow there, no doubt.  But since I no longer have access to that patch of grass, I will make a beautiful garden somewhere else.

Yet, I'm having these feelings lately that I love my life and my schedule.  I love the freedom. I'm having a great time taking in life.  Taking in knowledge.  Taking in movies and conversations with friends and Netflix and Facebook and Bravo.  I just wrote a poem on this blog the other day.  My first poem in almost twenty years.  The rewards are big and small and the financial benefits are not to be found.  I'm experiencing life and that does have its rewards.  But I'm also barely forging an existence financially.  I have answered the first part of a question.  How do I want to live life?

I know I want to live a life that feels true and authentic. I know I want to live a life with purpose.  I want to live a life with art in it.  I want to not only be surrounded by it, I want to be making it.

So the second part of that is: How will I live responsibly and sustain myself?  How will I make a living? 

That question I don't have an answer to.  I think it has been important thus far to leave that question open ended. But now I'm starting to feel antsy.  The thing I have to be care of for my self is to not be hasty or desperate or rush to the first thing.  That is hard to do when there are bills to pay.

So when I ask my self the question: Am I going to be lazy for life?  I am being a bit flippant.  Because lazy isn't without direction or purpose or living on someone else's dime.  Lazy can also mean relaxed, not to focused that I ignore the Universe's clues for how I should live my life or the people in my life.

I was watching "Oprah's Next Chapter" with Alfre Woodard, Phylicia Rashad, Viola Davis and Gabrielle Union the other day.  And Ms. Woodard said something great.  She said that you have to know the difference between what you do and who you are.  People get the business life and the personal life confused.  Life is about who you love, how you love them and the love you get in return.  But when you confuse the two, you seek that out in your job -- in this case, Hollywood.  And it's a lie.  She said that even when you're winning, it's a lie because it's not real.  And I had been living a life where I thought it was real. I needed validation.  I needed to be spiritually looked after.  And in God's name, why would anyone in their right mind ask a Pimp to be their spiritual guide.  Because that is what Hollywood is.  It's a pimp.  It gets what it needs from you and then you're thrown out when you're used up, worn out, stretched, spiritually empty and old.  It's a business relationship.  You are only looked after as long as you are useful and put money in its pocket.

I wanted my Pimp to love me!  That was my problem.  See, if I wasn't available to hear that and understand that I wouldn't have.  Yes, I could have watched that on my weekend if I was working.  But if I was still on the "hamster wheel", trying to get my place secured in the hierarchy, I wouldn't have heard it.  I would have not been available to it.

But my desire--at this point in the journey--to answer that question is an indicator that I am ready to define the next stage of my life for my self.  My "next chapter."

So just in an effort to tell myself that I'm not being lazy, I know that I have been doing things.  I'm trying to get two plays ready for workshops.  After I didn't get the teaching gig, I reached out to my best friend to start pitching ideas that we can take out during the next development season for television.    I also just told my boyfriend, The Drummer, that I will take over producing duties on the internet radio show that he started almost four months ago.  This is a job that doesn't pay.  Yet.

I want the rest of my life to be on my terms.  That's all I have right now.  I don't have a job I'm tied down to.  I don't have the expectations of a boyfriend who wants me to get a higher paying job so we can get a bigger house and a better car and so that we can go on vacations.  I don't have any more excuses, either.

So I hope I will be relaxed and open for life.  I hope I will not be tied down to everyone else's idea for how I should live.  I hope I will continue to experience things full on and that I won't be distracted.  But I also know that in order to live that way I will need to be determined, focused, relentless, detailed, demanding and driven.

In other words, I will be lazy in the ways that serve me and not in the ways that don't.