Stability vs. Taking Chances

I know you've been wondering. You've been thinking to yourself, Ada's summer season is wrapping up just about now, isn't it? Doesn't she usually post something about this time each year where she bitches and moans about how hard seasonal work is, worries about her finances, feels guilty about her lack of creativity over the summer, and in general decides that being an adult is tricky business? The answer is YES(!) and I know you've been wondering where that post is for year 2012. 

Well, wonder no more, because here you go!

Errr, or not.

Although I'm none too happy that the weather has turned grey and cold (why yes, I have worn long underwear to work all this week) and that snow no longer seems far off, I'm actually pretty content with the direction my life will take when I finish up with my seasonal full-time work on Sunday. There's much to look forward to as I transition into the winter season: more time for my personal business ventures of freelance writing and Etsy, season tickets to Broadway Across America (starting with Beauty and the Beast this Wednesday!), crafting weekends and other get-togethers, and a trip to Ireland in April that's almost completely saved up for. I'm rather pleased.

Although I have a hard time admitting it to myself, part of this contentment and security that I'm experiencing is because I am thisclose to accepting a two-year, salaried contract with my current employer. Over the past few Octobers, while I've been ecstatic to transition into my work-from-home portion of the year, I've been plagued by fears that I'm playing it safe, not trying hard enough, stuck at the end of a dead-end road, etc. etc. I've always felt that I have to take a big scary leap into the unknown to really prove myself. I've worried that if I'm not taking huge chances, then I'm not really living the life I imagined.

Then I remember that I'm a go with the flow sort of gal and that the closest I've come to a "life plan" is some hazy idea that maybe I'd sit in an East Coast cubicle as a magazine editor and that maybe I'd like to be married and start having children when I was 27. Since I'm remarkable wrong on both those counts, I think, at long last, it's time to release those hazy imaginings of yesteryear. Things aren't going the way I thought they would, but doesn't make things bad.

So I am not going to quit my day job because:
I like travel and the occasional dinner out
I'm a fan of health insurance
I enjoy being able to save for an exciting place known as "The Future!"
I still learn helpful things from the job and there's room for creativity and innovation
Despite the emotional tug of war that comes from running a business that's not truly your own, I'm the boss. Yup, I am.

You know, financial security is nothing to be sniffed at. Whenever I think that I'm not being very brave or that I'm not true to myself by sticking with this here day job, I remember that I gain more and more freelance clients every year and I've even managed to turn my knitting hobby into a teeny little business that keeps me in yarn money. How am I not being true to myself if I'm consistently carving out time in my life for things that make me happy without falling into a financial tailspin? Isn't that all any of us really want?

There's dissonance between what I think I should want from life and what I really want. If I'm being honest, all I really want is self sufficiency.

I don't need a fancy job. I don't need letters behind (or in front of) my name. I don't need a big house.

I want to be my own boss. Make my own food. Travel when I want. Have the financial security to feel unlimited and secure. Really, I've made fantastic strides towards all of those things in the last few years.

So I'm going to going to take a chance on stability and stop looking at it as being "stuck." Instead, I'll focus on all the doors that have opened and continue to be opened by sticking it out in my current situation.And I'll let change slowly seep into my life.

At this moment I don't feel pushed to take some bold, big move. It's enough to know that I have bold, big moves inside me. Moves I can pull out when the time for taking chances is just right.
 

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All I Want For Christmas Are My Two Front Teeth

This morning, my tooth fell out.

Actually, I shouldn't be so dramatic.

This morning an entire tooth did not fall out of my mouth.

Rather, this morning, as I sat down with my plate full of bacon and blueberry pancake, bit into a piece of bacon and felt a funny sensation in one of my front teeth . . . a cracking sensation. When I went to investigate, I  pulled out a teeny white shell. The shell looked familiar, but I have to admit the first thought that ran through my head was "what the &*@#! was in that bacon?!" But I quickly realized, with a sinking feeling in my stomach, that the familiar white shell was the veneer that had been glued to my front tooth for more than a decade.

Since I was sixteen, I've had veneer caps on my two top front teeth. For whatever reason, both my brother and I suffered severe stains on our permanent top front teeth. No one's sure why. Something in the water? Children's vitamins? Who knows? The moral of the story is that the dentist decided the most fail-proof way to "remove" the stains was to cover them up with supposedly "permanent" veneers.

And it was fail-proof. .  .

See, you can even tell those aren't my "real" front teeth

Until today.

Now I'm missing the front of those veneers, exposing my weird, chiseled down "real" tooth, while back of the veneer still hangs on jaggedly. Trust me, it is not a look quite as cute as this:

SOURCE

As luck would have it, the dentist isn't open on Friday, so I won't know what's going to happen with this tooth of mine until Monday at the earliest. But I'm not in any pain, just a little self-conscious (the veneers always were a matter of vanity) and a little bummed out about more unexpected expenses. And while I certainly wasn't planning on having a tooth cap pop off, my brother has had both of his veneers pop off in the last few years so I knew I might be dealing with this problem sooner or later. Still, bummer.

I swear, all I want for Christmas this year are my two front teeth.

Are you listening Santa?

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Life for Rent

If my life is for rent and I don't learn to buy,
well I deserve nothing more than I get
cause nothing I have is truly mine

Since graduating from college three years ago this month (May 13, 2007, to be exact) I have moved seven times.

Granted, they haven’t all been big moves (but some have): two of the moves were back to my childhood bedroom in my parents’ house. Technically, I’ve moved to my parents’ house three times in this time period, but since I spent last summer bopping around between my parents’ house on weeknights and the Shack and the cabin on my days off, I’m not sure what exactly we’re calling last summer. Living out of a suitcase?

The point is, that since graduating from college and supposedly “getting on with my life,” my life has fallen into a haphazard cycle of six-month periods that involve a different job and a different living space. All of my belongings have not all been at the same residency since I was 18. As much as great trips like the recent New York City trip can inspire me to throw away dreams of a permanent life and instead spend my life jetting off to fascinating locales, there’s a deeper part of me that’s ready for this spiral of six-month periods in my life to settle down into something a little more linear.

I am twenty-five. My plan is to heck through the world with a B.A. until a master’s degree proves necessary. So far, so good, at least when it comes to making a living with a B.A. in English. (Garrison Keller references at this point are strongly frowned down on.) Yet, I’m far enough removed from my collegiate experience to be ready for my life to settle into a more natural ebb and flow of seasons instead of being a revolving door of change. It seems as though life might be headed in that direction, but I’ll let you know how things look in six months.

I can tell you one thing, it’s high time to stop listening to NPR’s Marketplace. Every time, I happen to listen to that show, I find myself worried about paying off student loans. I wonder if I've already missed the boat on saving for retirement. I start to feel the need to be a fiscally responsible adult. Then I remember that I’m an English major.

Finances are pretty straightforward when you’re a freelance writer. Since I have no money, I manage my finances with one cardinal rule: Spend as little as possible. Whatever’s left over gets sat on. Is that for retirement? I’m not really sure. It seems like a decent idea.

Lately, Andy keeps bring up the idea of buying property before the real estate market turns around. Logically, it makes pretty decent sense. But to be honest, I find it all to terrifying, too “grown-up” to truly contemplate. (I suppose when you reach the point of needing a plant sitter for your houseplants, you’ve probably stumbled across the bridge into adulthood without knowing it.) I’d rather not deal with questions about loans and mortages. I’m even less excited to deal with the more pressing question: where do I really want to be for the foreseeable future?

Right now, I look up from my computer to stare out the window, where water laps at the lake’s shallows. If this is life for rent, things are pretty good. But that chicken coop I sometimes dream of isn’t going to materialize until I learn to buy.

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