To Serve Two Masters

“It is the best of times. It is the worst of times.”

– Charles Dickens, ‘A Tale of Two Cities’

The timeless statement from Dickens sums up exactly how I feel right now.  My job is the best of jobs.  My job is the worst of jobs.  I am grateful beyond measure to be employed by a company which genuinely values my contributions.  The same company which is giving me everything I need to succeed, and is also paying me more than I’ve ever made before in almost fifteen years of full-time employment.  One of the most under-the-radar benefits of my new workplace is the fact that I am paid on a weekly basis.

Every Friday, new check.

When you live paycheck to paycheck as we do, decreasing the distance between paydays is a boon beyond measure.  Short one week and need to push a bill back?  You can go ahead and get groceries on Friday.  The reverse is also true, and even a small amount of flexibility with budget planning can make a world of difference.  Furthermore, for the first time in years, I am once more on even footing with family contributions.  Although I do not cling to a belief that I must be the primary breadwinner, nor do I hold that I am ‘useless’ unless I am that primary breadwinner, I do operate under a strong personal sense of duty and obligation to my family.  When I can look my wife in the eyes and feel like I’m not an unequal partner in our marriage, that is indeed ‘the best of times’.

My job is also smothering everything I love about my life outside of the workplace. I go to bed at an obnoxiously early hour.  8 of the PM.  Nine, if I feel rebellious. That’s… nothing.  I’m home for what, two hours and some change?  Then it’s off to bed and up and at-em nine hours later. I exert so much mental energy over the course of my day that I can hardly think straight upon leaving the office. I spend my time at work squeezing maximum computational power out of every neuron.  Hell, sometimes I circle back just to make sure I didn’t miss anything.

I have to cut off my caffeine intake at 2 PM just to ensure that I can sleep at night. Given my particular illnesses (ADHD, Anxiety, Depression), this is a classic example of robbing Peter to pay Paul.  Sure, it allows me to sleep at night.  Yes, technically speaking, more sleep at night means a healthier and stronger mindset after.  However, sparing me the only medication that has worked (until recently) for such an extended period of time means that I hit two o’clock and may as well be a pig in a wig.

When I get home?  Woof.  Writing is the last thing on my mind.  Even this simple post, which isn’t even at a thousand words yet, has taken me the better part of three hours of writing and I’m way past my stupid arbitrary bedtime so tomorrow will be torture.

I find myself in a unique position.  For me, at any rate.  I’m used to having five or more hours to play with after work, and that idea is laughable at best given the requirements of my position.  Coming home, devoid of any mental faculties worth noting, only to try and force my brain into motion once more on no caffeine, surrounded by my loving (but loud) family?  Five hours of freedom each night is peanuts compared to writing under those auspices.

Working in solitude, competing against yourself and your demons as you put one letter in front of the other, is the single most important skill to master.  Moving that time to *checks schedule* Friday nights if it’s not a date night isn’t a recipe for instant best-seller.  Even if you hold that statement at arms length and squint, it’s barely writing at all.

So here’s me.  Smack dab in the middle of a state of affairs that is simultaneously envious and repugnant.  Welcome as a warm bath after a long day, as unwanted as another Transformers sequel / prequel / whatever.

I’m not sure I can keep writing if things remain as they are.  That scares me.  Scares me in a way that only sober reflection upon my own mortality can.  It makes me want to rend my clothing, run screaming into the night, read Fifty Shades of Grey.  You know; self-destructive behavior.

I’m not done writing yet.  I have stories I want to tell.  Hell, I have stories I want to finish telling.  There are worlds that live only within my mind and that is a crime.  They are places of love and loss, sorrows and exaltations, and TERRIBLE PUNS FOR WHICH I WILL NOT APOLOGIZE!  How can I do all that if I can’t write any longer?

I find myself the recipient of a sadistic choice; on the one hand is the literal bread on my families table.  On the other, all of the hopes and dreams and fears and growth and pain and joy that has been my writing career to date.

I must put food on my sons table. I know this, and it is a duty that I carry out regardless of personal cost involved.  Just ask the wife.  She can share stories of just what I’ve been willing to do in order to make sure I bring home the bacon.

He cannot provide for himself, and my wife doesn’t deserve to suffer just so that I can live out my own personal wish-list.  Building a writing career takes money and time, and lots of both.  It’s not cheap to hire cover artists, layout designers, or to edit and publish a story.  I’ve tried to be an artist just scraping by for too long not to see the many long-term advantages to settling down and committing to a good position that I am prepared to reap. Especially now, where I have more long term opportunities than I could’ve possibly known existed when I submitted an application on Indeed.

So here I am, unable to abandon my family, unwilling to let go of my writing.  Something must give, and as is often the case in such instances, I know that it will be both sleep and peace of mind.

It is the best of times. It is the worst of times.

Dickensfully,

The Unsheathed Quill