How To Respond (Patreon)

9.27.22

How To Respond

I don’t always know how to respond to you.

You touched my wrists when I exposed them to your tracing fingers. They brush along the tender nerves and offer a deep sense of vulnerability. The tilt of your hand and your nails could bite into me, could urge me to revoke this offering. You could press too hard, make my blood pound in my ears, have me do battle with the instinct to recoil and retreat. But you do not. Your skin is soft against mine, and the warmth you radiate seeps into me. I find myself at ease when you hand curls around the space below my palm. I find myself wanting you to touch it more often, from how safe it makes me feel.

Your kindness is so immensely foreign.

You shifted in the bed beside me and turned to glance at my shadowed figure. You ask about my job, how I said earlier that I liked the work. I tell you that I do - I like the physical aspect of it. I like my coworkers. There are things it offers that I enjoy as well. I explain if the coworkers were different, then I think it’d be a different story.

Even with all the drama? You press.

I say sure, even with all the drama. There is a lot going on. But I like it well enough.

When I inquire why you asked, you say you wanted to be sure I was still happy. That I don’t have to stay at this job if I’m not. I realize I must say something before I disappear into the thoughts and feelings this statement provokes, and so I tell you that you are so sweet to me. Because you are. Because I had not remembered that I could leave this position, that I could keep searching for one that sparked a greater joy than the meager embers the limited pay at the bakehouse offers.

I thought of leaving a few times. I thought of looking for something else - but what would I do? Where would I go? Every job I have worked has only been worth it for some odd benefit - the coworkers, the discount, the security. Once upon a time, I loved the work I did, but that vanished with a demotion, with a leaving of my faith, with the destruction of a relationship brought on by the other party.

You say that you are happy and fulfilled at your job. You enjoy it, you find some satisfaction and pride in what you do. I do not know if I can find the same for me. And sometimes, that knowledge begs me to ask why even leave the current comfort, if I know it will not bring the pleasure I know I’m seeking?

I have always been this way - a longing mess of a person, aching for something she cannot have. Wishing to craft for a living, wishing to earn enough to pay the bills, to buy the groceries, to live well enough by doing what I love.

Those who sell my privacy have learned this about me, and the videos I see, the class offerings, the posts - all of them speak of how a creative quit their job, took the leap, made it happen. I wonder how. How did these creatives become full-time writers, artists, comic creators? How did they work the longer hours, how did they know when the time was right?

I always planned that I would only leave my previous job when I was ready to make it as a full-time creator. I told myself that narrative often enough, I believe there is discord in my soul of not having lived up to that promise. And now I fret: will it happen? I was to save enough that I could manage a year without work. I was to build up enough funds to pay off all my bills so the amount to earn could be ever smaller to get by. This plan I crafted… what of it now?

The bakehouse pay is not enough for me to save consistently, for me to amass a wealth to support this vision of the future. The hours in the day dwindle, consumed by sleep, by eating, by household duties. I am left with one, maybe two, if I am lucky. Two to make a dream come true? Two to build up a foundation, two to create, to market, to grow an audience? I am maddened by the state of this world. How am I to live? How am I to make a passion my job? Am I forced to give up the life outside of work to this? I have only just experienced happiness for the first time - only just discovered what love is. I am unwilling to give up even a second. Unwilling to let go a breath of time.

This glass ceiling presses against my shoulders, and I wonder what it will take to break it. I do not know if I can create more than I am already in the time I have to spare. I do not know if I can grow further without stepping out of the job, without taking a hammer to the glass, without breaking out in some foolish hope for success. Am I doomed to be lost in the endless grind of moving parts, the endless shift of employment, from one exhausting mess to the other? I am at a loss. Perhaps I was not built to survive a world like this. Perhaps I was built to endure each shift, survive for the joy and pleasure I feel outside of it. Exist for the weekends, for the adventures into the woods, for the long conversations under starlit skies, the new experiences, the love, the life. Perhaps that is the lot I am given, the lot I must refuse to buckle under. Maybe I was built to yearn.

You ask me if I’m happy at my job, and I tell you I like the coworkers, I like the work well enough, I like what the job can offer me. I like my three day weekends. I like the discount. I like being able to ride my bike to it and back. I think the matter is settled, I think it resolved. I sleep on it, believing I’ve answered honestly. And all through the following morning, I think on it again. And again. And again.

Am I happy at my job?

I am happy outside it. I am more well than I ever have been. I find joy in every second we build together.

Am I happy at my job?

I don’t know. It is a job. And I do not find it inspiring. I do not find it fulfilling. I do not find myself thriving.

The work I am doing in getting the team together, getting them organized - that is powerful, and that is good. And that is tiring, and it affects me outside of my scheduled hours. I cannot set it down fully. I cannot leave it completely.

Sometimes I do not know how to respond to you. Because it never occurred to me that a job outside of my creative work could be enjoyable. I forget that you find your work fulfilling. I forget that you thrive there, that you love the work you do. I forget that I have never tasted such sweetness, and I do not know if I ever will.

I am unfathomably happy. But I do not know if that extends to my workplace. Not while that location is elsewhere, not while it demands hard work and offers low pay. Not while it does not include me telling my stories, creating my art, building an audience on the bones of my characters and plots. I am still happy with you. I am still happy with us. I do not know if I will ever be happy to labor under a boss that is not me.