I'm coming back to blogging.
I realize I've said that more than once in the past few years.
I have to say, I was "blogging" before it was "blogging": back in the day when it was "online journaling" and you had to build your own website and join a web circle. It seemed more real then. Seems like the genre now is all full of people trying to get a book deal for their "mommy blog" or their DIY blog or their lifestyle blog showing how much more beautifully they live than you.
I don't live more beautifully than you.
My home is plagued with roving bands of dog-hair dustballs. My blinds and shelves are filmed in dust. There's liquid lettuce in my crisper drawers. My lawn is mostly dirt. My clothes are a random, ill-assorted collection of items from thrift stores given to me by my thrift-junky Bosnian neighbor, items purchased retail at least 15 years ago, things given to me by my mom when she lost a bunch of weight, and a few things I got from Stitch Fix back when I could afford such luxuries.
It's been a rough year.
In January I lost my job, and I went six months before I found a new one that came close to matching the salary I'd made before. In the meantime I did a lot of crafting (I had this idea I'd set up an Etsy site and sell mosaics), a lot of writing (I was going to become a freelance writer), a little editing (also freelance... hated it), and then a lot of working retail for $9.50 an hour at JoAnn crafts and fabric. This last I found both exhausting and rewarding, though it was very awkward when someone from my "previous life" as a salaried professional would come in and see me in my green apron, stocking shelves, cutting fabric, or standing at the cash register. I could see the dismay and dare I say pity in their eyes. But there was something enjoyable about the work It was so immediate and task-oriented. I especially liked working in the loading dock, receiving freight then opening boxes and sorting the new merchandise into plastic bins to go out on the floor. It triggered what seems to be a deep-seated need for classification and organization in me.
You wouldn't know this by looking at my home, I warn you.
Then in July I got another "real" job: a full-time position working for city government, managing the website. It's not quite as far as you can get from editing, but it's definitely in a different neighborhood.
I like the people I work with, and when there's plenty of work, I do enjoy what I do. But there are down times that lead to boredom and inertia: my old arch-nemesis. It will definitely do for now... but not forever.
So, here I am, at age 52, back to wondering what I'm going to be when I grow up.
