1.24.2020
I thought the inauguration of Joe Biden would feel like a turning point, but lately, I’ve felt the opposite. I saw a TikTok where someone said it’s because our bodies finally feel safe enough to actually process the trauma we’ve endured at the expense of the former President, and perhaps that’s true. Unverified of course, but it makes sense to me. I feel like because I no longer have the distraction of whatever the hell horrible thing that administration was doing, I have more free time to focus on my own existential dread.
Maybe it’s because we’re so close to the finish line, that I’m getting impatient. My music is my lifeline, and I haven’t played a live show in nearly a year. I’ve been so busy fighting fascism, that I haven’t really noticed, but now I’m starting to notice, and it’s eating me up inside, even as we round the corner with the changing political landscape and vaccines.
The problem I’m facing right now is that I’m seemingly doing better than I ever have. I’ve got things in the works. I have a steady well-paying remote job. I have more money than I’ve ever had. I have all the plans in place for my EP and just need to execute them. I’m less than two thousand followers away from monetizing TikTok. I’ve had a lot of extra time to spend with my family and my dog. I feel guilty because I have what a lot of people don’t have during this pandemic, and yet, I’m having crippling anxiety on a Sunday because I don’t know how I’m going to fake my way through Monday morning.
I had a cowrite scheduled today, and we spend two hours trying to write a song and came up with nothing. That may have been the nail in the coffin.
I wrote out my two weeks notice. I saved it as a draft. I ruminated some more. Then I sent it. I don’t have a backup plan.
Maybe I’m self-sabotaging. Or maybe I’m just afraid of stability. Maybe in a twisted way, I enjoy the freedom that comes with not knowing what I’m going to do next. Maybe I’ve just become lazy. I don’t think that’s it though. I’m extremely hard working. I’m just not motivated right now.
It’s sad because this lack of motivation is translating into my own work. Only time will tell if my day job was the catalyst. It did come with an extremely high workload, which left me exhausted in the evenings and made me feel like my weekends were needed for recovery rather than my own work. This is a cycle I don’t want to be in.
That job was a far cry from Postmates driving. Maybe I’m just getting greedy. maybe I'm forgetting what it was like to eat canned beans and rice every day because I'd invested everything else into my dream. At the same time, I feel like it’s not unreasonable to want a job that feels fulfilling, that doesn’t feel draining, and allows for life beyond it, because everything I want to do relies on life beyond it, and maybe that’s the problem. The working world isn’t set up to operate like that. Maybe I’m just jumping out of the frying pan and into the kettle, or however, that phrase works.
I was a good student. I don’t know if I’ll ever be a good employee. Maybe I’m not meant to be.
I have a lot of loose ends to tie up in my own business. I have some things in the works that I can get going if only I had the motivation and energy to do some troubleshooting and complete some tedious tasks.
I’m really hoping this is just a hurdle or a funk. I don’t know what’s going to come next. I hope I’m not making a huge mistake based on a knee jerk emotional decision rather than an informed one, but the truth is I’ve been having ups and downs with this job for a while now. There are a lot of benefits but at the end of the day, If I’m so tired that I’m unable to write music, nothing else matters. That’s the answer.
I’m headed back to Nashville soon. Maybe that’s what’s been missing.
Times like these can make me feel like my end game is too far out of reach. I don’t truly believe that, and I get frustrated with myself when I think so negatively. I like to believe in myself as the creator of my own destiny, but excessive optimism also gets annoying. I feel bogged down by debt and outside circumstances. The money would solve most of my problems, but attaining the money I need also feels like it's destroying my soul. So there’s that. I’m a dramatic person.
I’ve been having ups and downs like this for the past couple of weeks, this time I just happened to actually pull the trigger, so I guess we’ll see what happens.
I've been here before. The last time I felt this way, I wrote Rome. Things worked out, and I got a great song out of it, which again is all that matters at the end of the day.