this woman’s work

I’m fighting a low-grade depression with bouts of full-fledged anxiety and have been for the past few weeks. Some days are better than others and some evenings are downright swell. But this is an afternoon of mumbling melancholy. This makes it hard to write.

Of course I haven’t been writing much of anything lately unless you count blog posts and client communications (I don’t count them) and this has a lot to do with my bad mood. The new (to me) elliptical trainer helps. Thursday night potlucks help. Kids in general help (except when they’re hanging on me when I’m trying to read or pounding on the bathroom door while I’m trying to take a bath or fighting with each other when I’m on the elliptical trainer and I have to take my iPod earbuds out and scream back at them as best as I can considering I’m a little out of breath and all). But except for those times, the kids are a bright spot to the day. Same goes for their father — generally bright spot — although he also has his moments. (Don’t we all.)

I must be having my midlife crisis because I spend a lot of time thinking about the things I should have done and the things I wish I’d done and the things I better have left undone. This is coinciding with similar feelings from Brett so sometimes in the evening — now that we gave up cable — we play regret roulette; basically spinning our wheels and mourning our choices. 

It would be nice to get through this personal growth time, (which is how I tend to think of these downward spirals) and get onto the next phase of living my life. But I’m waiting for some things to resolve and a bunch of those things are out of my control. So I’m waiting. Fidgeting. Feeling sad and scuffling around the house.

Lemme tell you, the state of politics isn’t helping any. 

I’m feeling very woe is me.

They had to do with anxiety. Work anxiety (because I’m going on-site again next week and am having my usual stagefright); marketing anxiety (because I’ve got a speaking engagment in a week and again with the stagefright); friendship anxiety (because I haven’t resolved what is likely to be an unresolvable issue); time anxiety (because I have a lot to do and my ability to get it all done is somewhat hampered by other people’s schedule constraints).

I woke up and stared at the ceiling and worried.

Sometimes I feel like I’m getting away with something and am about to get caught around my work stuff. I like it so much and yet it pays me well so I keep thinking that I’m somehow doing it wrong and the other shoe is about to drop squarely on my head. Then I think that the trade-off is the endless chaos since every day is unpredictable and I’m entirely dependent on my own small self. I mean, working on commission can be scary (and that’s what freelancing is really — making a living by commission).

I met this guy who works for himself and he referred to his past few years of making his own living as a time of “unemployment” because he likes it so much even though he works pretty dang hard. That’s how I feel. How am I paying the bills when I’m unemployed? But then I have a night full of nightmares and say, Oh yeah, this is a fair wage. I forget that the anxiety of freelancing is a downside of the work because I think it’s a problem with me. I wouldn’t do that if I had a “real” job; I’d be able to identify the bad parts as being part of the gig because work is segregated from the rest of life.

Does that confusion make sense?

Like when a client doesn’t pay me it’s pretty easy to say, “Oh that’s a downside of being a freelancer.” But when it’s free-floating anxiety related to work I can’t always shrug it off as going with the territory. And I need to do that because part of my anxiety is that I feel like life is too good and I’m going to be punished for it.

I love my lifestyle so much that it scares me. Why is this? I suppose it’s some neuroses rooted in my childhood or something. I guess I don’t care about the why so much as I hope that I can get better about handling it with practice. I don’t exactly want to take contentment for granted but I’d like to enjoy it more without feeling like I ought to punish myself to balance my happiness and stave off disaster.

My friend Kristen is sponsoring a kid photo contest but I won’t be playing. You want to know why? Because Brett — while saving Madison from a rogue wave — dropped our camera into the ocean. He was hoping it would dry out and work but so far no dice. It is salt water, after all. I’m glad he saved the kid especially considering her hard-won ocean happiness but am awfully sad about the camera. We’re planning to head to Klickitat Street and Grant Park — that’s a photo op I need to cover.

Also I realized that I left a sort of central outfit to my vacation wardrobe lying on my bed at home. You know how it is with trips this long — you have to pack with versatility in mind. So I packed work clothes (for the conference) and play clothes only the central play clothes outfit isn’t here so I’m at a loss.

Perhaps these two things were what led me to wake up at 2am in a stone cold panic worrying about 4.3 million other things. Things like: Who the hell is paying for all this anyway? (Me.) And how in the heck am I going to make sure all our expenses are covered when I’m taking a ridiculous 10+ days off? Which led me to the ever-popular: Who do I think I am anyway? Why am I not fourteen steps ahead of where I am career-wise? When will this agent get back to me and what if s/he says no and no one else wants it either?

That’s when all panic hell broke loose and the fears started coming fast and furious including: When am I going to get back to my exercise routine? Why did we buy this house that needs so much work? How in the world did Peanut get fleas and why did we have to find out after we left from the kind people who are caring for her? Why haven’t those two clients paid their bills yet and how can I get them to? How are we going to replace the camera? WHO’S PAYING FOR THIS ANYWAY? Can the kids really eat this much Easter candy without their little bodies going into total sugar shock?

I’m a worrier by nature and it’s always worse at night when all the monsters under the bed come out to play. I’m not feeling so hot this morning but maybe I can doze in the car on the way back to Portland.