Saturday, January 1, 2022
A friend of mine told me that I need to write every day. No matter what it is, just pick up the pen and write something. I’m pretty sure I wrote this down last year somewhere when she said it and tried to do this. I haven’t managed to make it work yet.
It’s also something successful writers say. Carve out some time to make writing happen whether you feel like it or not.I want to try this. Purposefully schedule time to make it happen. But also get better at scheduling my days to create better structure.
I haven’t held a corporate “day job” since November of 2019. One that caused me to clench my body in my sleep and I would hence wake up with the shakes. I call it the second worst day job I’ve ever had in my life. The first was telemarketing in Cedar City, Utah, but at least that one had tuition reimbursement.
I was fired on a Monday. When my manager came in about two hours after I got there, he called me into the conference room and said they were letting me go. No reason. No explanation. Thanks, “Right to Work.” Or, as I like to call it – No Rights to Dignity. I had been at this place for about 7 months. I was the fourth person in this role. I had lasted the longest out of my predecessors. The woman I was working with – my trainer, superior, and company veteran – was an incredibly toxic human. Being let go was a blessing in many ways. Curse in the form of loss of insurance only really, but also a day job/theatre work structure I had been used to for most of my adult life.
My Husband said we would be okay until I found something else. I was working on a production at the time (a “Me Too” centered adaptation of Measure for Measure), and then right after closing my then 17-year-old disabled daughter moved into our home from her dad’s where she was living while I was working in Chicago. Thus, making us her primary caretakers after being the weekend home for 10 years. To recap: I lost my job, took over primary care of my special needs teen, and opened and closed arguably one of Shakespeare’s most troublesome plays. Never one to slow down, I jumped from that production right into another: The Nether, by Jennifer Haley, over at my company, The Constructivists.
And then came pandemic and my daughter lost her mind. Understandably considering all of her structure and stability had fallen apart in the big move from one primary care home to another and right after an insane pandemic quarantine zoom schooling environment she could not possibly understand.
Now, for the past two years, I’ve mostly been trying to hold our household together while not losing my own mind from the loss of the stability, home, and comfort supplied by my theatre industry when it pandemically shut down. I’ve also tried my best to hold multiple companies together – two theatre companies (my own and the Milwaukee Theatre Alliance plus a couple of friends’ companies in Chicago) and being a support system for my Husband’s independent construction industry company.
So. Structure. I need it. I crave it. I want to find it again as soon as possible, even if this fucking pandemic will never end. Make a daily schedule and stick to it, but forgive myself when I don’t. I’ve got a mean perfection and self-shaming streak. I’m thinking it would look something like this:
6:30-8am: Wake up, kid things, and getting her to school
8-8:30am: Breakfast
8:30-9:00am: Meditation and daily gratitude
9am-1pm: Computer work. Meaning, dedicate these hours to being behind the computer for maintenance of websites I manage, emails, and job hunting. Running multiple companies as well, of course.
1-1:30pm: Lunch and Aurora things when she comes home from school
1:30-2:30pm: Housework and Aurora chores
2:30-3:30pm: Workout
3:30pm: Dinner planning
5-6pm: Dinner. Just in case I need to get to the theatre (COVID willing)
All of this in a brand new schedule book I plan to purchase Monday. Damn, I love those things. And I think it’s important to get out into the Universe that I need to find some paid work this year. And until Aurora is in a full-time day care environment after she officially graduates out of her 18-21 vocational high school program, I imagine part-time will be the best option. But I need the security back of paid work. Nothing will fill you with more fear than thinking about being an old, homeless elderly person. You can get there easily when you think about not having paid work for two years, and seven years before that when you were taking care of your disabled newborn. As I’m sure you’ve learned by now through this pandemic, leaving the workforce to care for children overwhelming falls on women.
But all of this require flexibly. I think 2022’s goals are finding structure, flexibility, and paid work. And I want to get back ON stage. At least these are the goals for this first day of 2022. I, of course, need the flexibility to change these goals when they no longer serve.
Goddess grant me the Serenity to accept the things I cannot change
The Courage to change the things I can
And the Wisdom to know the difference.