Money is a Sadist: What I Want

I have gained some perspective.  The only thing really messed up in my life is not having enough money to be comfortable and be able to afford emergencies and maintenance of our life.  We are doing better financially than we were a few months ago, but that's partly because we're choosing to ignore a number of things we simply can't deal with. 


I realize that common (incorrect) wisdom is that money can't buy you happiness but in a speech J.K. Rowling made to Harvard students, she acknowledges what I have always known: there is nothing romantic about being poor; it is a constant source of stress, of struggle, and often of depression. 


Why do I think I am not successful?  It isn't because I'm measuring myself against someone else's yardstick, I can assure you.  I have failed to live up to my own custom yardstick for success.

Isn't it enough that I have friends (kind of amazing, actually seeing as my capacity to alienate grows more impressive all the time*), that we sort of have our health (except for all the issues we can't afford to get help for), and that we have a home (that we very well may lose in another three years, if not sooner)? 

Right.  The reason I don't think I'm successful is because I have failed to make enough money to take care of my family properly and well.  We don't have any security.  I don't think being rich and popular is a real measure of success- but being able to pay all your bills, cover emergencies as they crop up (without having to lose your credit or your house to do so), and an ability to put extra away against old age: that is my idea of financial success.

When Philip was making almost three times the money he's making now, we were living a much happier life.  We were more capable of dealing with everyday ordinary stress.  We weren't rich, but I was able to take excellent care of our baby, our house, and our garden.  We ate better then than we do now because I had time to plan, to cook ahead of time, and to not be rushed in the kitchen.  I was writing and trying to figure out what direction to go in with it but I was able to consider the question without the incredible pressure to make it matter financially.  I was a homesteader and a writer and:


...and I knew at that time that I was living my ideal life and I felt grateful and knew what an amazing achievement it was to be content and know that I didn't have to keep reaching all the time because I was doing exactly what I wanted to be doing.  Philip was able to make that happen and we were an excellent team making that ideal life that we both loved so much.

My idea of the ideal life has not changed, but our circumstances are changed beyond recognition.

Blogging gave me the perfect platform for writing.  I had come to realize that my best writing skills are creative non-fiction with a heavy emphasis on editorial content.  I had thought my ideal writing career would be as a weekly columnist who either writes about urban homesteading or about "human interest" topics.  A columnist that people would read because even if they didn't give a crap about giant rutabagas the voice of the writing would make them curious and interested in them.  Writing a blog is like writing a column.  It is natural to me.  It feels right.  This particular blog has become a big philosophically heavy piece of work with little glimmers of light and comedy. 

Stitch and Boots is the urban homesteading column I might have written for a newspaper.  And I'm very proud of it. 

So why say I'm unsuccessful?  Because I am not doing the one thing I really need to do:

Make enough money to give us back our comfort and remove the greatest stress we've ever known.

And incidentally, we were much more poor when we first married but weren't nearly as stressed because we didn't have a child's life in our care back then.  We didn't have a house and a vested interest in keeping it.  Having a house means something to us and I have planted those fruit trees as a hope and an intention to be here long enough to see those trees bear full harvests. 

Why is it all on me and not on Philip? 

He looked for work for a very long time without any luck.  It was demoralizing and desperate.  He finally landed a local job for which he was qualified and willing to work for a lot less than those skills are worth in larger companies in the bigger cities.  It was a great relief to us that he got that job and he likes the work and his bosses and doesn't have to commute.   These are all things we count as big blessings.  And they have given him raises so it hasn't been static pay, it has improved bit by bit.

I write my blogs because I need to always be writing.  I also need places to put specific interests (I have many) and it gives me incredible pleasure to photograph my life to illustrate my blogs.  But to be successful at it isn't just to enjoy doing it.

My friend Rydell did me a great favor by sending me a link to the J.K. Rowling speech.  Her words really sunk in and are rolling around in my head as I write this.  She spoke about how being poor did her a favor by stripping life down to its bare essentials.  There was the work she had to do to pay her bills and there was this other thing she had to do: write fiction.  So she stole what time she had to write out of her days and eventually she made that writing good enough to take her to a new chapter of life.


I want to write three blogs.  I want two of them to become successful enough to make me a living that includes being able to afford dental work and car fixing and state taxes therapy for all three of us and buying household things we need and being able to take better care of our house...and ultimately enough to give us security.

I would like, eventually to make enough from two of my blogs so that I no longer have to work for anyone else.  (Please don't fire me, Blogher, for dreaming of one day not needing to work for anyone else...we're talking dreams here!)  Because with those extra 30 hours a week I can do more homesteading, gardening, and sewing to write about.  I would have more time to keep my house clean for my sanity and to spend quality time with my kid.

And I would have the time to work on fiction.

So far I have not been successful with my blogging empire as a way to make a living.  Am I giving up too fast?  Is it possible that success could still come if I continue to work towards it?  How can I know if I will continue to be unsuccessful (and therefore putting energy into projects that could be better used for other things in my life), how do I tell if I'm putting too much faith in myself where faith can't help me? 


And just to say it out loud: if I had to choose one path of writing- it would be blogging (or a weekly column in a newspaper or a monthly column in a magazine which I think is truly what blogging is).  What I love about blogging is the immediacy of it.  It's the freshest writing out there** and is such a brilliant medium for developing a voice and a purpose and, when done better than I have managed, can be the most direct route to the readers who will most enjoy your work and consequently support you financially.  I love the dialog that is possible between the author and the readers, even when a blog writer has such a large readership that they don't answer comments, their readers being able to comment influences the blog content and the writer in many ways which makes it richer and more direct.

I think there are books in me.  I learned that this summer.  I opened a door which holds both keen possibilities as well as new agonies.  But somehow I think the fiction isn't the essential.  The fiction is something that I want to work on, that I want to explore, but it isn't the essential for me the way writing fiction was the essential for J.K. Rowling.

As usual, my Sifu has managed to bring Kung Fu into my everyday life with his philosophy on self defense and here it is:

In order to access your full fighting potential in a self defense situation, you need to unlock your subconsciousness to let it do what it knows how to do.  To unlock your subconscious you need to give yourself a directive, decide on one thing to aim for...he always aims for the eyes.  You tell yourself "Aim for the eyes!!".  If you make that one directive, your brain will figure out (without you having to make painful calculations) how to accomplish that goal. 

I think this applies to my situation right now.  I am fighting to get my life back from a hell full of brimstone to a more secure and less stressful place.  Put more simply: I need to make more money.  Everything else will follow.  That is my directive.

I obviously can't do it with prostitution.  I definitely don't have enough hours in my week to go work another job.  I certainly can't beg for help from Jesus. 

I have exactly two ways to make money outside of my 30 hour a week job:

My Etsy shop. 

And my blogs.

We'll leave this blog out of it.  This is the blog I get to write whatever I want and if you all get bored stiff you can wander off indefinitely.  This is my spirit.  Here.  But Stitch and Boots...I believed I could make that one run and become successful.  And the fashion blog.  There really is a place for that and it has a lot of potential to make money.  My faith in myself these days is fragile, at best, and dust at worst.

My Etsy shop has already made enough money for me to buy my ticket to New York City to attend the Blogher Conference.  Which, is an excellent place to network and get new people to read my blogs.  Now I'm just trying to save money from my Etsy shop to pay for food and drink and taxis for the trip.

So I would like to thank everyone who has shopped my Etsy Shop because it's made quite a difference and I am seeing that it has pulled its weight enough that I can say none of my energy there was wasted.  You all have provided me with a glimmer of fresh hope! 

If I save up enough money to get me around NY while I'm there then I can save up to cover our tax bill.  This is one of those big stressful looming things that makes me want to drink all my money up in beer.  (Right, I know this is exactly the most unhelpful thing to do.  Being under a constant barrage of stress encourages one to make very poor decisions that ultimately worsen whatever stressful situation you're in.)


It's time for me to return to my paid job and give that my proper energy.  Before I go I want to say to my old friend of exactly 20 years- thank you for finding that speech and sharing the link with me because it really was exactly what I needed to hear and has given me fresh energy and perspective. 




*You know, this is the kind of shitty self talk that I'm supposed to shut down.  I'm saying (all the time) mean things about myself as a friend, as though the other people involved had no responsibility in our friendship...only me...which is ridiculous.  Obviously they have some crappy behavior to account for as well.  I am actually a pretty good friend to people who are also good at being friends.

**When we're talking about the well written blogs.