Secret affairs (not of the heart)

Being a freelancer/adjunct is a strange existence. I have a random schedule, I work bizarre hours, and I am really all over the place even though some days I am just at home working.  I manage to work in each time zone, except Alaska and Hawaii. Each January, Scott brings home or has shipped a new Moleskine planner to help keep me on target. I'm an ace juggler at this point, although this sometimes means days of little to no sleep. I'm still working on the time management issue....

This reality of work, though, is a bit like having many relationships I shift between. Sometimes I'm with this one, but secretly fitting in covert meetings with this other one. I can't let so-and-so know what I'm up to or that the reasons I've been a bit MIA is because this other so-and-so is demanding more of my time and effort. They all kind of know of the others because they know I'm a freelancer, but they choose to pretend they are the only one (and often the most important). We have our good days and our bad days (or months/quarters/semesters), and sometimes I want to throw it all in and settle down for something boring and staid, something that is steady and promises support (benefits and pay guaranteed throughout the year). Then I think of the last relationship I had like that (and the one before that), and I cringe at the thought of being locked in again. All those promises and loss of control for that. I cried a lot, fought my frustrations daily, and it took (what felt like) forever to break up with them.  I ended up in the same place each time: on the brink of going crazy, we hatched some insane plan, packed everything up, and ran away. (If I could figure out how to embed a gif, I would, but I haven't, so you should just pretend that I provided an animated gif of Julie Andrews running through the Austrian mountains in The Sound of Music.)

The truth is, I just do better with many jobs and doing many things. I'm more productive when it's my time. So what if it takes me two hours to complete and project and then I can write or read or go out? So what if I piddle my time away and then work until 5:00AM to get a project done? (not really a fan of this one, but it happens frequently...again, that whole time management thing) I don't have to be chained to my desk or in my office for eight or nine hours because I'm paid to be there. It's not productive for me. In those jobs, I stared at the internet. A lot. I had to ask before I could go away or needed to leave early. I had to justify everything to someone else. I found it stifling.

Now, lest you go thinking this kind of "relationship" is rainbows-and-unicorns magical, it's not. It's unsteady, unpredictable. It can be cruel and relentless. Sometimes I'm staring down the tunnel praying that the light isn't an oncoming train racing to take me out; actually, sometimes I hope it will take me out and just put me out of my misery. I sleep weird hours because I'm anxious about this or that. I question myself and what I do constantly--so much self doubt and an unhealthy amount of self-loathing, perhaps, because I "can't be normal," because I don't want to be "normal". I even fret over how to explain what I do--am I a teacher, a writer? Does simply saying freelancer cut it? There are so many rules and requirements to sift through, to make sure I'm where I should be, that necessities are taken care of because if I don't, it means I don't get work for months; even if I do have all of my ducks in a row, it still doesn't mean I won't be without paying work for months. I have to travel with work always; it's never not with me really.

When people tell me, "I want to do what you do," I inwardly groan and think, "No, you really don't. Play it safe for your sanity and that of your partner."  Yeah, maybe I make it look easy (I don't know how; maybe they aren't really looking), but I don't know if they notice the strange tension I carry in me, or those dark circles under my eyes, or that twitchy way I always reach for my phone to check email and messages because they come from so many different places, or that wistful way I talk about mid-December like it's the promised land (it is).

But I have a fierce pride, too, in what I have done and cobbled together. So I'm going to go get that extra cup of coffee now and check in on my eight relationships to see who needs me.