So, February ends, and with it the end of my day job.
Yes, believe it or not, artists have to eat, and often have day jobs. Or their families have to eat, that sometimes happens too.
In my case, I was the Creative Technologies Director for a nonprofit organization. As happens sometimes with nonprofits, the money runs out, and they can no longer afford to have a full staff. That’s what happened to me. They ran out of money, and I ran out of employment.
Now, I’ve said for a long time that I wanted to have more free time to do art, to create fine works that everyone anyone will love. But this isn’t exactly what I had in mind. I was expecting, I don’t know, a little time to save up some money. Maybe to get my name out there a little more, to be a little more consistently known.
But life has a unique way of doing what it wants. Whether you are ready for it or not.
Being laid off, as I said on Twitter last week, is much like being the last kid at the prom that no one wants to dance with. They aren’t willing to dance with you for various reasons, and yet they aren’t ready to kick you out the door either.
It’s like you’re forgotten. Maybe just ignored.
Now, I’m not really the type that looks for approval from everyone, or even anyone. I do my thing and, frankly, you’ll take it or leave it. But being laid off feels odd in the sense that you haven’t done enough to get fired for, but you haven’t done enough to seem valuable enough to keep at all costs either.
You become a leftover.
Believe me, all day long, even all year long, I’ve been trying to convince myself that it isn’t time to stick a fork in me and call me “done”. I’ve been trying, but I’m not sure I’m succeeding.
You see, if I had been truly fired, I can get all trumped up with anger and destroy everything around me. But being laid off there’s a sense that it isn’t really my fault. Which means I’m stuck in this wallowing depression, with neither the anger to fire me up and out, or the look to the future to help me through.
I’m trying to decide what tomorrow will bring, and I’m realizing that I can’t think in broad strokes. I need to haul in all those apocalyptic ideas, or even the “I’ll show them, I’ll sell art to EVERYONE!” emotions. I need to put the grandiose away, and start with step one.
Step one on this big list (it’s an analogy, come on people) is simply this: Take a simple step forward.
It doesn’t have to be a big step. It doesn’t even have to big a big project, or a specific idea. It just has to be a step forward.
Tonight’s ruined of course, way too many emotions to really get anywhere except further down the frustration highway. But tomorrow is another day, and it might be the day that decides how all of the rest of this is going to go.
So, I’ll wake up in the morning and take a small step. Maybe that’s getting on the elliptical for half an hour. Maybe that’s finishing the dinosaur ink that I have sitting on my desk. Maybe that’s adding an item or two to my Etsy store.
Whatever it might be, I have to take that small step.
Then, after that, I have to take another small step. Then another. Before long I might actually get somewhere (like up the stairs).
It’s akin to a flood inundating the land. It all started with just that one drop. So shall I.
