So this is going to be short.
I still only feel about 78% human, despite spending the entire day in bed watching back to back episodes of UK Shameless.
I don’t usually dwell on the shitiness of my life at year’s end like some people tend to do, but that’s usually because my life isn’t shitty. Maybe it’s because I still feel a little but wobbly, and maybe it’s because everything I ate today was tan and made of grain, but I’m having a very unhappy time.
The move to Portland devastated me financially even as it saved me emotionally, psychologically, physically and by any other standard you can think of.
As much as I love my new city, I’ve decided that enough is enough. I’ll begin looking for a job anywhere I can get it starting Jan 3. I have several irons in several fires, and if any of them proves to be profitable before that job is found, more’s the better, but I can’t sit around waiting any longer. I wasted 2014 pitching and testing and hoping against hope that something will come through. Well, not anymore. A year and a half of my life spent scraping the bottom of an empty barrel is enough at this juncture. And maybe I’ll try again some day, but I’m tapped out. If I go another month like this there won’t be anything left of me.
It’s funny. So much of my operation looks solvent on the outside. Even one of the half-dozen things I have in the wings could save us, but I’ve said that before, and what happens when that thing is over, or it’s a failure? Like I said, I haven’t eaten much today, and I’m still sick, but the prospect of another year like the last year positively ruins me. I couldn’t do it. I don’t know if I can ever do it again. 2014 was by far the most difficult year of my entire adult life. I’m very glad to be leaving it behind.
Editor’s Note (12/31/14): I’ve had a couple of people comment off-blog about this massive cry-for help. First of all, having since eaten a substantial amount of real food, I feel way less hopeless about life in general, and 2014 in particular. Second, being an independent contractor is kind of like running your own company in that every single mistake and short-coming is directly, totally your fault and no one else’s.
In his book, The Hard Thing About Hard Things, Ben Horowitz talks about every company having between two and a dozen WIFIO or (we’re fucked; it’s over) moments during start-up. In my experience as a contractor, the fact that I have no funding but my own, no manpower but my own, and no safety net except that which I have managed to keep in place even as I bootstrapped the fuck out of my entire life and career, WIFIO moments come hard and fast. Sometimes one every month.
This improved state of mind hasn’t changed the decimated state of my bank account, nor has it changed my plans for 2015. Like it always seems to, work came in at the least expected moment, so thins aren’t nearly as desperate as they were 2 days ago, and I’m betting that, like it always seems to, I’ll be back at WIFIO sooner rather than later. But for now, we soldier on.
I know it’s cheesey and trite, but it’s also true: what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. You made it through this year and 2015 will be even better for you. Getting a job doesn’t have to be the end of your own operation, just that this wasn’t the time for it, maybe in a few years it will be and you’ll know more of what to do. Hugs!
Thank you. Ironically, some work came in this morning. It’s not going to save us outright, but it’s making me feel a lot better about all the effort.