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September 23, 2005
Account Balance
Of all the ongoing crises I deal with on a regular basis, money crises are probably the most persistent and frightening.
I like to think that I've come a long way over the past year or two, that changes and challenges that once threw me for a loop don't rattle me like they used to. But the money goblin remains.
Anne Lamott writes on this very subject: "Sometimes I feel like I'm trying to put an octopus to bed. As soon as you think you have those other arms tucked in nicely under the sheets, the money arm pops out from under the blankets and flails around."
The past year has been tumultuous in almost every way, but especially financially. It's hard enough to choose to move of your house and find a place to live when your world is kind of falling apart around you. It's harder to do that when you've just quit your steady job and are trying to build a freelance business for the first time.
Miraculously or not, eight months after leaving my job and moving out, I'm still alive. Yep. I am sitting here cross-legged on the bed. I just ate a delicious dinner of whole-wheat vegetable ravioli. I am not starving. (I am not even close to starving.)
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Last week they offered me a job at this place where I've been freelancing for a while. It's not such a surprise: this organization is the parent company of the place where I used to work, up until January. I've stayed in close contact with many of the fine people at this company since I left.
The offer was... okay. It was neither spectacular nor insulting. It was steady work with good benefits. It was work I knew how to do, and an opportunity to rub shoulders with some wonderful colleagues.
I sat with the offer for a few days. At first I was almost drooling on myself: the thought of having a regular, predictable salary was completely intoxicating.
Then I thought about it some more. It was steady work with good benefits. It was work I knew how to do.
It was work I knew how to do.
Wait a minute. I've done this work. I did it for years before I quit to go out on my own. I quit for a reason. Wait a minute.
My brain loved the offer, but my gut didn't. I felt like I had started something with this freelance thing. I had started something and I needed to follow through on it, and not give up when things were hard.
I turned down the offer today, knowing that it means that I'll lose this company as a steady freelance client the moment that they hire someone else to fill the position. I traded a steady thing for a question mark.
On the train home today I looked out the window and tried not to panic. I have a less-than-optimum amount of money in my bank account right now (well, don't we always have a less-than-optimum amount of money in our bank accounts?). My third quarter self-employment taxes due at the beginning of October. And then there's that new apartment.
I signed the lease today, basically taking a leap of faith, meeting the landlord over at the apartment early this morning and finding my breath stolen by the rawness and strangeness of this empty, new place that is now mine to fill up and live in and love.
The landlord took the signed lease, handed me the keys, and dashed off into his day, leaving me in this little studio apartment with the sun coming up outside.
On the way home tonight, I was worried. I was feeling that familiar churning in my stomach that lets me know that I'm dealing with something that feels very threatening.
Anne Lamott continues:
"The most important thing is to give away as much money as you can to those in need. Marianne Williamson says that we are not starving for what we are not getting but for what we are not giving. So cast your bread upon the waters, because it will come back to you in many ways.... And then start talking and laughing about your financial fears and fantasies with your friends. This is how we have come to feel absolved, how we have found whatever wisdom and equanimity we may have about our butts, our mothers, and our relationships, so why deny ourselves that incomparable medicine when it comes to our secrets and shame and terror about money?...."
Oh, that is such good advice.
So I'm talking about money on this website. As far as I can tell, my job right now is to Not Freak Out. My job is to Trust. My job is to trust the path that has opened up before me over the past couple of years, to honor the forces and people that have invited me into this place I'm in, where I'm sitting here on the bed, feeling content and well-fed and well-loved and generally just fine. My job is to learn the lessons that are being offered to me at this time — even if they are difficult lessons which involve uncertainty, loss, and not buying the Klipsch iFi speakers that I want really bad.
After a little window of Freaking Out on the train, I made a very deliberate choice to Not Freak Out Anymore.
The train came to the Decatur stop. This is my new train stop — I jumped off and took the stairs up to the street.
I crossed Church Street and walked down Sycamore towards my apartment building. The little town that I now call home is Decatur — it's this suburb of Atlanta that's almost frighteningly wonderful.
I walked on down the street. There was that familiar wise old lesbian lady, buying a newspaper (cliché it may be, but she reminds me of Georgia O'Keefe). There was a man whizzing by on his bicycle. There was a family walking down the street hand-in-hand, a mom and a dad and a schoolgirl and stumbly toddler, all progressing together down the sidewalk. There were bells ringing from the church on the corner.
I walked down the street past the library to my apartment, my scary and gorgeous new apartment. I just got the keys this morning, so I haven't really moved in yet — there isn't much inside, other than some toilet paper and a broom. But I wanted to see the inside again anyhow.
I climbed the steps and put my new key in the lock and opened the door to the apartment. A sense of my rising self rushed in and met me at the door. I called out to the quiet air, "It's me! I'm here! I'm home!"
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