Breaking up is hard to do

Dear Career,

I'm so sorry, my darling Career, it's not you, it's me. Actually, I think it's both of us. We've been together in some sort of way for about a decade now, but it's just not working out. You see, all this time you've been hiding your feelings from me: that you think I'm not a very good writer, that I don't cope with deadlines, that I'm a little over-trusting and naive.  You might be right.

And as for me, well, I've probably not been very committed to you either. I've been seeing a Life on the side, and frankly I find it more fulfilling and interesting than I find sitting down with you for eight hours a day. Life knows how to treat me: photography, knitting, books, my partner, dogs, sunshine, friends, and so on.

Yes it's true, all of these things seem to require that little frisson of excitement which you provided by monopolising all my time -- it made the stolen moments with my life oh so much sweeter. Oh and money, which you always provided in a grudging but usually reliable manner.

But lately those two things have been pretty lacking, frankly, and I  just seem to spend a lot of time in my pyjamas reading blogs and waiting for you to call. I've left god-only-knows how many messages with you, and I've emailed you, and sent you little reminders, and if I look in my 'Job Hunting' folder on my PC I can count just how many times I've tried to bridge the gap between us. Cearly, however, it's not enough for you to even bother about me anymore, and I'm not sure I know how to even try anymore.

And as for the money... I don't want to come across as overly entitled, but honestly, you think for all the work I did -- all the 14 hour days, the missed family events, the weekends I spent with you, the degree and the HECS, the sucking up to sociopathic bosses, the boring hours of mindless administrivia, and that thing that happened on the yacht -- I'd in a slightly better shape financially. I don't want to be rich, I've never expected that, but I did hope for a regular pay packet, enough to keep me above the breadline, so to speak. 

Of course some of this, much of this, is my own fault. Friends and family warned me that maybe you weren't the right one. They told me it would be hard, if I did pursue you, but for a while it seemed like you wanted to pursue me right back. But then the sour times set in, and I could see them all thinking 'we told you so'. And indeed they did.

So I think it might be time to say goodbye, Career. There are other people you could be seeing and I think they'd suit you better, and I think I might need a new direction. Even a new Career, and I guess I need to admit I've been looking around.

I'll always cherish our time together, especially those brief moments where it seemed like I was talented and interesting and worth giving money to; and you were fulfilling and possibly even leading somewhere better.

Fond regards,
Kate.

Ps -- if you do change your mind, you know where to find me.

Comments

[Anna Winter]

If I could pay you to blog more regularly I would.

[Kate]

Hey! I've been blogging heaps! But the same goes to you, Oh Goddess of Reason.

This is just venting. I've got offers -- oh yes I do! -- but they're all just in limbo right now and I'm broke and stressed and so on, but I know in a month or so everything should have sorted itself out, and if it hasn't -- well then I'm really truly calling things off. And I mean it this time. I won't be crawling back.I swear! No really.

[tigtog]

All Careers Are Bastards.

[Ariel]

Your chosen career (and mine) is a notorious tease, but that doesn't mean she doesn't love you. I remember going begging at the Footscray Housing Office and getting a government cheque to cover my rent in a particularly low patch, if it makes you feel any better. My fellow recipients included the mentally ill and drug addicts, a couple of them nodding off in the waiting room. (That felt BAD.) It picked up again from there.

And to my knowledge, (almost)all writers alternate between some degree of confidence and thinking they can't write (including the whole 'who am I kidding?' thing.)

Judging from the quality of your blog, I reckon your career is just playing hard to get.

[anthony]

It's much too late to find. You think you've changed your mind. You'd better change it back or we will both be sorry.

[Kate]

Thanks Ariel, reading your latest entry on your blog gives me some hope. Now all I need is an idea...

Anthony, is my Career hanging out at your place playing Guitar Hero II?

[anthony]

It is and we just nailed Van Halen.

[Anna Winter]

Sorry that comment did seem a little like a nagging black pot, didn't it? It sounded like a compliment in my head, I swear!!

Will try to blog more now that uni has finished for the year :)

[Pavlov's Cat]

Kate, it's seasonal, like fruit-picking. Writing work always dries up over the summer. I've found that for me the trick is to try to do the Ant and Grasshopper thing over winter and spring, and then goof off for a month or two.

[Liam]

The thing on the yacht? I think I speak for all of when I say: it's anecdote time.

[Fyodor]

Yes, yacht thingy, please.

[Thanks, Haiku: I was waiting for someone to show inappropriately prurient interest...ahead of me, that is.]

[Zoe]

yacht story, stat!

I had a career once. Now I have a child and short term contracts from time to time. Oh well.

[Kate]

Dr Cat, thank you, hopefully I will have some good news to report here in the next few weeks.

For everyone else: the yacht story shall have a post of its own.

[Liam]

See, Kate, the muse is flighty, prurient, and arrives via TCP/IP.
When all else fails, turn to making stuff up, to hyperbole, to mindless abuse and to self-deprecation---hey, it worked for that overrated misanthropic pot-monster John Birmingham.