Shift. It doesn't necessarily have a negative or positive connotation—you're not always taking steps forward or back, but you're moving. This year so, so many things have shifted in flight.
I went from unemployed photojournalist to successful business owner. Last year my whole financial life was fight-or-flight and I dabbled in a million different things to pay the bills. This year, though, I invested as much time, effort, and capital in JSP as I possibly could. I know now what I didn't know then, and I'm looking to the future with strategies in mind.
Shift because I also started freelancing as a writer, which opens up a whole new set of possibilities for the future. I thought my career with words was gone when I left newspapers, and I was okay with that. Now I'm picking up a pen again and it feels right.
Shift in my family. The main source of income has shifted for the time being; my mom says the only thing keeping the lights on while we battle this bump in the road is my rent money. Tell me that's not scary to a freelancer without a set paycheck. Shift because my brother is finally back in college and I know he's going to succeed this time.
Shift because my boyfriend moved to Grass Valley at the end of last year and we've spent 2010 figuring out how to make a long-distance relationship work. It's not easy, especially when you're both workaholics. Shift because I'm now 25, and that's not an arbitrary number to me. I'm not a kid anymore. I wish I could get that horrible thought out of my head.
Shift because with all my time invested in work I can't always take care of myself. I overeat, undersleep, hardly have time for exercise and never cut myself any slack. My patience is slipping and my temper is all over the place and that's just not me. I think when it comes to starting a business as a young person, you take two steps forward and one step back; that can mean different areas of your life experience great growth while the others lie dormant. Well I'm ready for spring.
I hope 2011 will mean balance. It's time to get to know myself again. I like that I've become the kickass professional woman I've always wanted to be, but somewhere along the way I became a little too focused on that and I lost the fun-loving girl who dances 'til dawn and sings karaoke and hijacks the occasional tractor (I've said too much)...I am happy to say that I've already started making changes for the new year, the newest and best version of me yet.
Now that I've learned how to be an independent professional, it's time to fold that back into the richness of my old life. I'm starting with diet and exercise, but I hope I can retrain myself to take time off. Shut down my compy sometime before midnight at least a couple times a week to settle down with some tea and a good book. Take a day off, on a whim, to catch some bluebird pow. Go eat sushi on the beach and spend an afternoon tossing sticks into the water for my dog. To loosen up and not miss opportunities because I'm chained to my desk.
Hopefully the hustle of 2010 will be attributed to growing pains when the dust settles. Life isn't easy when you're standing on a knife's edge. It's all about learning how to balance.
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