Back in May, my husband lost his job due to the pandemic. The only way to keep paying bills was to figure out how to shift to our side business full-time…which meant learning to run a business in an economy worse than the 2008 recession. I joke that it’s like learning to fly an airplane in a storm. I joke a lot when I’m nervous, angry, and feel like I’m hanging by the skin of my neck.
Our life is full of ironies. I write this all while sitting in the comfort of a home we built when we really didn’t have money, ten years after we’ve heard over and over again that owning a detached home in Greater Vancouver was a pipe dream. We had to build it, though; the trailer we lived in was leaking and full of mice, and we had little kids to worry about. So the irony here is that the pandemic gave my husband a push towards his dream. Our business picked up more clients. Four years ago we started the damn thing just so he didn’t have to work nights at a glass-cutting factory or work long hours in a company that sees his worth, but still refuses to pay him for it (which is another resounding theme of our adult life).
The other irony is my writing. It’s always this frustrating puzzle for me. The irony that I had to give myself the permission I’ve been looking for in the industry and self-publish, but I’d just lost my job then too and had no budget so it wasn’t anything but blogger acclaim, and then the series that would finally catch the industry’s eye is the one I wrote in an extremely unhealthy state of mind. I couldn’t see the light when I wrote that series.
I’m still not sure how to think about that, with regards to where I go from here. As an artist, maybe I produce the best work at my rawest. But I don’t know why it feels like we always have to do what amounts to self-surgery in order to get anywhere in life. Whatever ambitions I have is really just survival instinct–things have always been hard, so I strive to get ahead to give myself room when the inevitable setbacks happen. It doesn’t mean I don’t want to just sit back and breathe a little.
The best means of visibility is more books, so while I continue to lack that marketing budget I have to keep writing books to maintain momentum. 2020 has been the absolute shit for everyone, and I’ve heard people say “Give yourself a break” but for me, to do that is tantamount to sliding off a mountain cliff because I’ve decided to stop climbing. It’s why I have complex feelings about the idea of “self-care.” Not because I don’t think it’s important. It is–very much so. And I would love it if life thought so, too. Because every time I think I’m comfortable enough to practice it, life tips me over and laughs at my face.
I’m not sure where I’m really going with this. It’s been dark and rainy this whole week and I haven’t been getting walks, and that’s always a mental health recipe for disaster. I’m staring at the clouds though, squinting, hoping for a bit of light. And then I guess it’s back to figuring out today’s words, wherever that will lead me.
