I was doing some basic arithmetic earlier this evening after visiting an apartment I might rent for the summer, and realized that despite my running around like a [I don't like the dead chicken simile, but it would fit nicely here], paying my bills all by myself this summer may be a harder task than I anticipated, before I bought about ten (fifteen?) books for summer reading in celebration of my new jobs.
Drat. At least if I become homeless, I’ll have plenty to occupy me.
What now? I think I’ll offer up a new prayers during my inevitable anxious insomnia tonight. Other than that…ask for more work from both bosses? One of my major problems is that I don’t have a schedule. Not knowing when I’m supposed to show up some days, or if I’m supposed to, results in a lot of wasted time that could be spent either working or writing. Not that my writing gets me any dollas at the moment, but you know. With time, God willing.
Oh and I’m having a low-grade panic attack about the fall. There’s a chance that I’ve worked out a roommate arrangement for myself, in which case AWESOME, thank God. If not, I’ll have to live by myself. And I may not be able to afford living by myself. And my parents grow tired of helping me, God bless them. Gulp.
Funny thing about this whole education thing. In theory, I have a splendiforous ace in the hole any time I want to use it, in the way of my sparkling diploma from a famously picky college. So far, this shiny laser-cut diamond of an education hasn’t really gotten me jack. I haven’t gone to grad school, unless you count the adult education course I’m attending at Harvard (yes, it’s Harvard, but it’s the Extension School. There is no application process. If you have a credit card, you’re in). So no value there. I work as kind of a secretary, and kind of a Muslim networker/basic educator. I assure you that none of what I teach is stuff I learned in college. Nor did fancypants college teach me invoicing, which I currently do. Which leads me to the following freak out:
WHAT AM I DOING WITH MY LIFE???????
I want to be a writer. That’s the first problem. What I’m finding is that this is something everyone will congratulate you on, but in reality it’s kissing goodbye any hope you ever had of living not hand-to-mouth, paying for your own car’s tune-ups (you’re still using Mom’s Emergency Card, because it’s still an emergency), or having professional dignity. I’m ashamed to say it, because both of my jobs are with people and organizations for which I have the upmost respect, but having to tell people I meet who know that I went to Amherst (and know what Amherst is) that I work part time (even though 1/2 job+1/2 job=1 whole job) is totally and utterly humiliating.
If I ever write a bestseller, I will look back on this post as charming. In all likelihood, I’ll be looking at my same battered screen ten years from now screaming GET OUT, GET OUT NOW!!! I STILL CAN’T AFFORD NEW SHOES!
I’m barely keeping my head above water, and I don’t think I can do it indefinitely. For a lot of reasons. For money, for pride. I’m really bad at being poor. It’s a skill that requires discipline and budgeting, neither of which I’m very capable. Also it makes me kind of bitter, and I don’t like that, because, yuck, bitter people. I’m afraid that if I wallow in this making-ends-meet-maybe-hopefully-next-month space for too long, my educational currency will run out. I already didn’t go to med school. What will I dabble in next, in financial despair? Law school? Maybe I’ll take a crack at the LSAT and fantasize about a nice corner office where I can spend a hundred hours a week. Sure, I’d never get to be home and my life would probably be extremely tedious, but at least I wouldn’t have to listen to my father telling me That’s it! You’re cut off! every other week or so.
Out of my father’s four children, I went to the highest-ranked college. Out of his four children, I am the only one who can’t pay her own rent. No wonder he gets all beflustered with me. I’m all beflustered with myself.
Why can’t I just be a normal person and go into some established career path? Why didn’t biology totally tickle my every nerve? Why couldn’t I just have GONE to med school already, and make peace with handing over the next six-to-ten years of my life to the fluorescent inside of a hospital? WHY WHY WHY?
I have this total pipe dream of writing something that will 1. be important 2. touch people 3. educate people 4. earn me a nice chunk of change. And if it doesn’t happen, at this rate, I won’t have much to show for it. In fact I won’t have anything to show for it. Twenty years from now I’ll still be driving my ‘97 Honda, praying that it passes inspection, probing the depths of craigslist for a cheap studio apartment. Of course I mostly imagine it differently, but tonight Despair is my companion. I should have known not to add numbers together and see if they add up to rent. They don’t. In fact they can’t, and that is my tragedy.
This is the problem with the coupling of me and my dream of becoming the Queen of Muslim Noveldom: I’m just smart enough to think that it’s a good idea to put my eggs in that basket - because hey, I have something to say, goshdernit, and eventually my brilliance will emerge and people will loooooove reading my shtick. Unfortunately, I am also just stupid and undereducated enough to not be able to actually pull it off. Who am I kidding? I’m reading Dostoyevsky. And I’m telling myself right now, right here, with all the internet as my witness, that I will never produce anything like that. Not even close.
God forgive me. I don’t know what I’m doing anymore. The problem is that I could give up, but I don’t exactly have an alternate plan. So what now? Am I wasting myself? Do I bite the bullet and go to grad school (any grad school), not knowing where that leads either but hoping that it leads to some kind of salary - somewhere, someday? Or do I keep at the novel, the blog, the random magazine gigs that may or may not pay? I don’t like this crazy road. It’s taken some happy turns lately (near-solvency), but I’m starting to feel like I really need at least one more. I’m almost always full of hope, and yet ashamed of myself for not being my classmates who are now lawyers and almost-doctors, Fulbright scholars and Ph.D. candidates at Harvard (the real Harvard, not my pretend Harvard) and development workers in India, that I can never resolve it, and I swing between extremes…especially when I think about things like rent. My roommate is going off to get married in two weeks (lucky duck) and will never pay rent again in her life (see? L-U-C-K-Y. I guess the guy is nice too. Least of my concerns right now). Meanwhile I can’t afford to go to the wedding and I’m giving myself an ulcer just contemplating getting through the summer on my own. I can’t even begin to think about the fall yet. OhGodno.
Please please please say a prayer for me. And be liberal with advice.


