No school today, so I get to stay home and putter. Having a bit of a hard time motivating...it's grey, and not in the prettiest of ways. And it's so easy to just keep reading Goodkind (halfway through book 4) or chatting with Karina rather than start working...but eventually I do get back to work.
It doesn't seem right calling it work. I always used to think of work as something I really didn't enjoy, something that at its best wasn't boring, something I had to drag myself out of bed to do. And while there are still mornings when I have a hard time getting started...when I'm doing the work, whether it's writing or editing or running CS or grading or reading or studying -- it's interesting! It's often pleasurable. It's always satisfying...when I finish a project, I know I've done something I care about, that I think is worthwhile. Even when I'm utterly exhausted after a night of grading, or when I'm having trouble managing the different personalities on CS, or when I'm just feeling overwhelmed by everything I've overcommitted too -- I'm loving the work.
That's so different from all the years I spent doing secretarial work. It was fine, not particularly difficult, sometime even pleasant because of the people I worked with -- but it was just 'work'. What I did because I had to, to pay the rent, to buy my food, to keep me going so that I could squeeze out bits of time for my real life.
Now everything is my real life, rejection letters and all. That has made such a profound difference to me...I'm only occasionally really aware of it, but it's there. A bone-deep satisfaction.
Even if my path is sometimes rocky and bumpy, even if there are sometimes big gaps I need to take a leap of faith across, even if the road is dark -- at least I know I'm on the right path.
I could wish I had such confidence about my love life, or other aspects of my life -- but one thing at a time, eh?
"Johnny's Story" is now available in the anthology Desires. That's the link to the hardback, because for some reason all the reviews are there, but there's a paperback edition on Amazon as well.