I worried when I returned from Australia that I would lose my soul again. I got depressed, I breathed in foul air, the noise of traffic assailed my injured ears and yet, and yet, a semblance of who I had been stayed with me. I thought, huh. This is the me who's here to stay.
The one thing I lacked, you see, was a real job. Yes, freelance projects are jobs. But oh, the freedom. Oh, the carefreedom. Oh, the hours upon hours of lying fallow, soaking up tv programmes or planning blog entries, or just basking in the nothingness of nothing.
And now I have a job.
It's different.
Now there is someplace I HAVE to be at such and such a time.
It's different.
Now, instead of thinking up poetic phrases and meandering off into streams of consciousness, I try to figure out a better way to say "sum insured".
I lie awake and imagine glossaries of business terms. I imagine writing high-powered speeches that would hit the spot. I imagine, I imagine...and slowly the poetry seeps away.
I read Bo's post and resolve to print it out and stick it on my desk. No, nobody there will understand it but at least, it will remind me. Of all the things I loved. Still love.
The alarm goes off at 4.30 in the morning. By 7 at night, I'm fading. At 9, like a cute little kiddie, I'm just about ready for bed.
Where are all of you?
I need you.
Please come.
I'm slipping away.
9 comments:
You know, I know exactly what you mean. I feel exactly the same way about the tension between work time and creativity/free expression. It feels like work sucks away half your brain.
But it doesn't have to be...you can still find time to be yourself. And, now that I'm freelancing, I sometimes miss the structure of work. Not much, but sometimes. I tend to have trouble with discipline when I'm working for myself...
Don't you slip away. I need you. I need your poetry. I need to feel you floating in the atmosphere of my heart and imagination.
You are going through a period of adjustment but you are still there.
I remember what you said to me: Breathe. And: You are so much more than any one thing can make you.
I remember what I said to you: there is love, and that makes everything okay.
We're right here, love. And though you don't feel it, you are too.
You aren't slipping away, sweetie, you are becoming integrated. And you'll be all the better/more for it!! We are here. As are you.
Ah yes! The moments of another life that for some reason we cant get back to...
Jenn, come over and get the template and do the "I am from" - you would be so great at it. I'd love to read yours. (Of course, I love reading everything you write.)
Susanna: I think it was more to do with massive insecurity. Not knowing if I could do the job (even though there wasn't a smidgen of pressure and everyone was nice to me). I went out drinking with my colleagues for the first time last Friday. It was interesting.
Nessa: You are beautiful. Thank you.
PTB: You're helping me get through this in more ways than you know.
Jackie: I guess I'm so stiff and creaky and set in my ways that I don't do the adjusting thing so well. Hence the promethean angst. Thanks Jackie, you're an angel.
Grey: Indeed.
Busy is good and "they say" ya gotta love the they say people poets are mad. lol so that means your now more balanced. lmao Now on the other hand, I am use to "sitting on the fence of insanity with the wind blowing really hard. "
"promethean angst"...
love it.
and you're just at the starting point of the jobbity-job - it's hard to get into the rhythm of things, but i know you'll rediscover your mojo soon.
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