Yesterday I found out I am going to be without paid employment for several months.
I’m not going to bother mixing words here, this sucks. With tax season gearing up in January I will be back at it, but bills and such don’t wait around for the work to be done and paid for. They have a habit of preferring to be paid before their due dates, which don’t all coincide with the end of tax season.

Now I have some decisions to make; as in what the hell am I gonna do? My heart and my head often want to carry me off in opposing directions and it feels like it’s up to my body to stay the course or find a better one. Path A through sunlight meadows under bright, cheery, topaz skies full of butterflies and pretty stuff: Find some temporary hold over job til tax season gets under way. Path B through forests of imposing trees and gnarly undergrowth with the possibility of things that bite around the far bend: Find an altogether new job that will provide steady, year-round income. Path C through, no, no over steep, jagged, mortally dangerous inclines rife with scary, mean and probably hairy stuff : Go to school and get that English or Journalism degree I wish I had done way back when.

Alright, Path A provides me with the availability to pursue a freelance writing career “on the side”. Tax season, as you all are well aware, is rather brief, leaving a large part of the year to focus on my passions. One can conceivably generate an entire year’s salary in 3 and a half months. That fact alone makes this path really, really appealing in that I wouldn’t be dependent on my writing for anything sustainable. And as it stands, at this point, I can’t be dependent on my writing in anyway because it’s only provision has been warm fuzzies and sadly our economy doesn’t run on such things. Luckily, I’m no stranger to hard work; slinging shit or flipping burgers, if one or the other, would pay the bills are not opportunities I consider myself to good to undertake. So, in summary, nose to the grind stone January through April 15 and lots of free time the remainder of the year for getting carried away by my finger tips. Oh, I should mention that I haven’t yet actually been able to generate an entire year’s salary during tax season, that too, could be just another pipe dream.

So Plan B sounds feasible as a solution, but maybe not as immediate as I need it to be, and an awful lot like more of the same. Let’s say I may or may not be successful finding a new job in which case I may or may not be doing what I am now, then I may or may not have the ability to maintain my currently, well-oiled routine, and I may or may not find it a rewarding career, either way, I’m concerned about not having time to pursue writing on a regular basis. Finding a decent paying job, convenient to home, that is flexible and fits into my lifestyle, that I can actually land isn’t all that easy. It’s not easy; nope not. I have done the job search thing a few times since May, over the course of my partial layoff, and it hasn’t  been easy. Did I mention it’s hard? And does it even need to be said that it hasn’t been fruitful? Let’s say I send out 10 resumes a day over the course of a week, if I get one phone call back and get one interview, I am still one of umpteensomenumber other candidates all equally as needy and eager for the job. And, and, and, they all know they have to send thank you letters and make follow up phone calls and be not annoyingly persistent as well. Don’t be fooled by the nay-sayers, this shit for an economy has been productive on at least one front; we have at our disposal, for they are quite disposable, a plethora of accomplished job seekers. Back to the hard part, don’t think I’m complaining about having to do the leg-work, I get that part, it’s just that I need money before January.

And lastly, Plan C, my favorite nightmare, uhm, I meant daydream; college. I’m scared. It’s scary. I’m scared and it’s scary. I don’t think I need to elaborate on that. Wait, I did want to add that it has to be paid for. And so do my current expenses the bulk of which support a household for my four children.