18 posts tagged “bitchbuzz”
I got back from California about a week ago.
Last week was hard.
It's hard to go to a place where, despite the face that your life isn't necessarily there anymore, you're comfortable.
You have a dishwasher and a tumble dryer. You know where everything is and could quite happily give directions to someone if they asked you where the closest bank is.
You go into a grocery store and you know where and what everything is.
You have a power shower and a bathroom with an actual counter top instead of just a free-standing sink.
You can get in the car and drive to you favorite Starbucks at 9:30 at night just because you can.
You can drive alone in a car with the windows down and your favorite radio station playing, and actually recognize every song that comes on.
I'm comfortable in California.
But it's not my home.
So, coming back to London, the place that has become my home - despite the fact that it's lacking the comfort and familiarity of my former home - is a bit hard to adjust to.
Aside from all my family and friends, California is not where I want and need to be.
I belong in England. I just do.
But that doesn't make it any easier to come back to a cold, damp flat when you've just been basking in the sun with your family and friends for 10 days.
I guess it's a catch 22.
I can have my career and my husband and a world of endless possibilities in a country that consists of a history and a culture that I love and am excited by...and be ever-so-slightly uncomfortable.
Whether it be because I still don't understand half of the pop culture references that people throw at me, or because because the bank system and mobile phone system is still a bit mind boggling to me, or because it's fucking cold and cloudy and rainy half the time...as soon as I feel like a Londoner or like I have fully adapted to living here, something else knocks me on my ass and I realize that while I have lived here for 2 and a half years and I lived in California for 20.
Last week, I had to deal with that The Great Adjustment.
Perhaps if I had to head into an office first thing the next day and throw myself right back into work this wouldn't be as much of an issue...but, there's that whole, "I'm freelance and run my own website and work from home" thing.
I've now been working from home for over 4 months.
For one of those, I was working my ass off trying to get another job.
For the past three of those, I've been working on my own project. Something that is completely self motivated.
I get up every morning to work on this project because I want to, and because I need to. Not because I have to. Technically, I don't have to do anything.
I could wake up at noon every day, throw out a post or two - if that - and then call it a day, if I wanted to.
If I wanted to, I could give up.
If I wanted to, I could take people up on the full time jobs they've offered me.
If I wanted to.
But I don't want to.
For as unstable as my financial situation has been, for as unstable as my emotions have been...this is what I want to be doing.
It's harder that I imagined.
The thing about being self motivated and working for yourself, is that you are self motivated. Working when you're feeling like absolute shit and are doubting everything your doing is impossible.
So, you have to pull yourself out of that, rise above it, and do whatever you can.
Otherwise, nothing would ever get done.
If I laid around having pity on myself and felt down about the fact that sometimes, I barely have enough money to buy a train ticket into London to attend a business meeting - nothing would ever get done.
I'm currently reading Russell Brand's book, My Booky Wook, and despite it's fucking ridiculous name, it's a brilliant read.
The past few weeks (months) have been pretty rough, and when I read this, it really opened up my eyes:
When it comes to your career, you must always try and allow the positive aspects of your character to dictate what happens to you. Be led by your talent, not by your self-loathing; those other things you just have to manage.
I suppose that's what I'm going to have to try to do.
Lead with my talent.
Lead with the good things about myself, and not my fear.
Not my self loathing. Not my doubt.
And not my bank account.
