We’ve been in Oregon since Saturday night, and I’ve not been very good at getting or maintaining the vacation vibe so far. Sunday was all work and no play, getting the new marinaforhire.com (check it out) ready for my meeting on Monday. Which is great, because their wifi was out and my mobile site was acting stupid.
So all our frantic work was for nothing and I looked like a clown with a broken fucking site. No big deal, it was only a meeting to get some much needed guidance. I guess I only proved my need for assistance even more with my complete lack of website, despite the fact that I am a web marketer. If I didn’t have a goal of, you know, making any money or establishing any tangible payable situations, the day would have been a total success.
On the one hand, I feel like I’m spinning my wheels and I have trouble counting the work spent network building as real work because I don’t “get anything” from it. On the other hand, I know that this is necessary and helpful, and that when I’m not caught up in thinking about what my work can get me, taking meetings with other professionals, both when they help me or when I help them is basically one of my favorite things because I get to talk shop for an hour with someone who’s actually interested in the same thing as me.
Anyway, today was supposed to be the first day that we didn’t have anything to do. And I didn’t really work that much, just a few emails and a call here and there, but I am not feeling rested, even though on paper everything went totally vacation style. I’ve been having this feeling a lot lately. On paper, everything is fine, but emotionally I’m a complete mess because I can’t get out of my own head and enjoy my life. Then I feel guilty at my inability to live in the moment, which makes it worse. I try to meditate, or sit quietly, but there’s no time at all before I’m running over plans, contingencies, to do lists, and other details in my head.
I do every little trick I know, but I’m still really caught up in terror of an unknown future. I mean, the future is always unknown, but when there have been a string of months and years behind you where very little has changed, you can have a reasonable expectation that things will remain the same. Until it does change. Until you lose your job and attempt to start a company and every new day brings different challenges and you always thought of yourself as being flexible and entrepreneurial and interested in problem solving but then you’re just trying to walk your dog and you have to make a conscious decision to think of your feet (left foot, right foot, left foot, etc.) in a last-ditch attempt to have any part of your day not be spent completely freaking out about money and work and even that doesn’t pan out because you’re walking through some of the most beautiful gardens and tree lined streets in America thinking, “how much would I have to make to live here, and where would that income come from, and how would I…” and then the walk is forgotten; the flowers and fat, fuzzy little bumblebees might as well be the neglected trash, dirty graffiti and broken bottle shards that cover my usual dog walk because I can’t see a thing over my own shitty head.