It's not like you can say, "Well the number of changes we make to massive projects at the last moment creates reversals I'm not keeping up with" really. But not like you can't sort of think it anyway. The series of eight (or was it ten when we started ... ?) video conferences spanning locations across every time zone. The travel changes due to family commitments (what admin's going to question THAT!?), or winter storms, or changing needs at the last moment. I can predict the next flight out is going to come down to a "can we get an earlier flight?" on the morning of, and that is no problem.
The problem is that all these things affect other, smaller things. That call my boss didn't make because we changed travel and I didn't get his calendar updated. My fault. I know it is.
But ...
Oh, the dream. To actually gripe.
I posted today at one of the chattier fora at Historical Fiction Online ... about what it is like. When EVERYTHING - every single last goddamned (yeah, I said it; let mom come read it, at this point I wouldn't even apologize) thing - is up ... to you.
"Oddly, I've been having a related sort of gripe for precisely opposite reasons. Because I am functionally alone and single, EVERYTHING in my world is up to me to manage, handle, do, take care of, endure. At home, and at work. And lately, it is just too much. I am the sort who hates to ask someone else to do what I think of as my job for me, but twice today I turned to the absolute rockstar in our travel group, and dropped "can you call this hotel?" sorts of things on her. At home, I don't get to come in and relax; first it's feeding, sometimes cleaning up (poop when the dog was sick, or the litterbox, which doesn't take vacation), letting Penelope out in our newly fenced yard (*), walking her, getting myself dinner, getting ready for tomorrow, getting on email, querying, writing that ghost story, researching the WIP, staring stark drool-chinned at the wall for two minutes ...
(* And then there's the financial responsibility for it all, too, which can be a weight when my salary *still* remains less than it was five years ago. Le sigh!)
When I talk about missing Mr. X ... it's not always for rose-colored reasons. Sometimes, the mere idea of someone else just pumping the gas once in a blue moon is unreasonably wonderful."
***
There is nothing whatsoever in my life I can leave for anybody else. Nothing. Not a bill to pay, not a menial household chore, not the car, not my job, not the massive debt for a new fence (under $2k might not sound like much to many people; for me it is a colossal commitment), not the million things still in need of attention and remediation around here. I sometimes say proudly I've paid my own mortgage for twelve years now ... but I've also been hearing since the first year I moved here about all the home improvement projects I "need" to manage.
Mostly from my mom, yeah. Most recently it was an ongoing slow-burn about how the configuration I chose for fencing the backyard was - basically - "doing it wrong." When I mentioned at one point the limits on what I care to pay for, the immediate response was "I will pay for the difference" ... but that really went far beside the point. I didn't want to fence things her way for 100 reasons besides the money. But she's been feeling the need to tell me lately about all the shortcomings I've been indulging. I haven't done my taxes yet. She and my brother don't approve the fence configuration. After an accidental problem occurred during the fence install, "she'd never get to" its resolution "on her own".
That was the bit that broke this camel and resulted in a bit of, "You know what? When EVERY single last thing in the world is up to you for twenty-plus years, and you don't have a husband or kids or anyone at all to help you, support you, or even occasionally just do a damn thing for you - THEN you can tell me how wrong I am doing my life."
This wasn't by way of a fight, and didn't even get a serious fret out of her; it is perhaps that blazingly obvious that Diane does a little bit in her life.
And it does have its compensations. Look at the joy all over that pup-head.
3 comments:
Hey sista, I approve of your fence configuration. Sure, I'd have done it differently, but does that oblige you to make a fence of recycled and pilfered materials, to make it 6 feet tall and paint it black? Nah. You're doing fine without that kind of 'help.'
I totally get this. Eighteen years on my own. First four years in D.C. spent doing full-time temp and admin work. Wrote my book while holding down a full-time job and teaching part-time. Currently working a full-time job and a part-time job, taking small freelance projects, and trying to write during whatever passes for "free time." Have great local friends and a very supportive girlfriend, but she doesn't live here, so laundry, taxes, banking, cleaning, groceries, rent, bills, post office, car maintenance, Christmas shopping--all me.
But you know what? While people who don't have half your day-to-day responsibilities pine for "free time" to write a novel, you've actually written one. Responsibility and tight scheduling can sometimes be a blessing.
Hi, Jeff! If we lived anywhere near each other we could offer to spell each other now and then. :) Somebody needs to start a cooperative for the every day, non-romantic-partner-y junk ... But thank you for the encouraging words. I *have* been querying again, which is more to bite off and chew - but does feel really good.
Mo, no pout intended of course - as I say, even mom and I didn't get into it. It's just that it felt like an overload of failure for me, and I know that's all my curvatus en se perspective. :) Can't wait for y'all to SEE the fence! Maybe we can hit a nursery or something and find some nice stuff to put by that decorative bit.
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