A good friend of mine wanted to know if working a retail schedule and, ahem, 40 hours a week really allowed me to be fully creative outside of work when it comes to my writing. She's had a great job for a few years now but is contemplating a move across the country to fully pursue her dream. Of course, I am fully encouraging and loving this move. But, I don't know if there is any job where you're doing the 40 and you can still get your write on on the side.
The day I got fired from a job a few years ago I went and saw that movie, "Julie and Julia". I love me some Meryl Streep and food, and I was feeling down so it only made sense that I emotionally ate popcorn while I watched a movie about a lady who is emotionally cooking food to get her life together. Julie is the main character. This woman who works a regular 9-5 would get up at the break of dawn to write out her latest recipe and the trials she managed trying to get that dish to the table. Maybe I just love sleep, but I have never been able to make myself get up earlier than otherwise necessary to get work done, no matter the amount of coffee that is ready. But she made it a habit to get up and get going first thing in the morning. In my mind, I've always had this as a goal--that no matter my weirdo schedule, I can always get up, get some coffee going, and get some writing in before the day takes off.
I can see how this regular schedule works. If you work the same shift the same number of days per week, and you always have the same days off, you can totally swing a side hustle of sorts in your down time. As it currently stands, my schedule tends to be all over the map. Sometimes I go in at 7, sometimes I go in at 3. Sometimes I get done at 4, other times I get done at 2am. It sounds insane but it works for me in terms of living. Ben's schedule is also kind of weird and flexible so the two combined work.
I have even reached the point where I don't mind closing the store at night. I love having a long lazy morning of slugging mugs of coffee while I play computer solitaire. I am not productive at all in terms of my creative self, but damn, I just watched all of the previous day's fashion show videos and I just won three straight solitaires, clearly I am doing something right. But there is a sort of guilt there too sometimes because I feel like I do have things to say and stories to tell but I don't make time to do it.
The past two months at work have been the most trying of my short career. Girl, I hunkered down in my house and didn't speak to a soul when I wasn't at work. I didn't write a word. I barely spoke to anyone at work about anything. "You, go on your break now. You, you can go when she comes back." That was the extent of it for most days, I feel like. The isolation I was feeling, when combined with working even longer and weirder hours sometimes, do not make a blog or a life run.
Then the crux of all work problems disappeared. I now come home and instead of ranting and sometimes crying, I am telling funny stories about customers and my colleagues again. The weight dropped and my shoulders loosened up. I am wondering if I can make time outside of work to write a little. I have this great idea for a book and I even have some early ideas already sketched out. Everyone who I've run the idea past love it. That is great, right? And now like all things we want to do but don't know if we can, it just sort of sits on me to get it done. Yes, my schedule is bizarre but I manage to make time to read a bazillion fashion blogs and magazines, can't I take a little bit of that time and do something else?
I subscribe to, I think, four different fashion magazines. Then I got a Barnes and Noble gift card which let me purchase like three more September issues. On Friday, I almost vommed from too much fashion! There is no famine of beauty in this house! So I really can make time, even too much time, to do things I want. If I can know the ins-and-outs of Marc Jacobs and the possibility of his going to Dior, then maybe I can drink another cup of coffee and get up a little earlier and just do it.
I realize now that this is pretty much what I would tell my friend Maura. If you want to do it, then do it! The only thing that would hold you back if you are working a wonktastic retail schedule is you. I don't do shit sometimes because I'm a little lazy bones and enjoy just sitting around, thinking about my next sweatpants purchase. I just love all sweatclothes, okay!? You can totally have time to do a little writing or painting or sewing, or whatever, if you just don't do something else that is less productive. It can totes work.
I don't know if this letter is less to Rachel or more to Maura. But this is where things sit right now. I'm going to go make an appointment to get my oil changed tomorrow because I just realized I sort of sat and coffeed away my morning just now--solitaire and fashion, their love is my drug.
I like your beard.
Jon
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