To Endure is to Burn

“What is to give light must endure burning.”  Viktor Frankl

I don't have a job, at least not one that pays regularly. You may remember I quit that thing over three years ago. I've spent the time since doing various things, like laundry, dishes, shopping, visiting with friends, traveling, running our cat to and from the vet, getting healthier, and other such stuff that most people with paying jobs do. Almost everyone I know tells me they are jealous of me and wish they could have my life. But they don't know the truth: Having no job is harder than it sounds (or looks).

Now, let's not get carried away here. I love my life, and know how very fortunate I am to be in a situation where I do not have to work my fingers to the bone and put my nose to the grindstone daily, beginning with a 5:30 A.M. Sencha ringtone.

Being jobless has, essentially, made me identity-less.

At first, I enjoyed recovery-mode, and will admit to spending hours hanging around, binge-watching TV. But once I got caught up on PLL, The Walking Dead, Breaking Bad, Sons of Anarchy, and numerous other shows, most of which I'd never heard of, and I'd On-Demanded and Netflixed myself into oblivion, I was disgusted with myself. Rested? Hell, yes. But mostly just disgusted because I had never been so unproductive in all my life. Surely, I got more done in my mother's womb, what with all the kicking and stretching and growing and being aggressive enough to actually make it out alive. Without a job, though, I was sitting around dying, withering away, with nothing to feel good about and nothing to say. My husband certainly didn't care that I almost found out who "A" was but then, in a serious plot twist of utter nonsense and suspense, Nope! I still hadn’t even managed to acquire useless information about fake paranoid people running around their little town, lying to everyone, including themselves, about everything. But Pretty Little Liars! I was stuck in their lives--because I was "breathing just a little and calling it a life." (Thank you, Mary Oliver).  But I needed rest, I claimed. I'll figure out what I'm going to do, soon, I said. Very soon, just after I finish watching all 101 episodes of Pretty Little Liars and have a good cry over the fact that I won't have anymore episodes to watch until next season.

As I settled into my crises--no more PLL and who the heck am I?--I developed an urgent sense of self-loathing. I got to quit my job and pursue my writing. I was writing a book, and now I had all the time in the world to finish it! This was the life! But I wasn't writing. I was avoiding. First, there was the recovery period, and then there was the helping period. The helping period consisted of two very crucial elements that kept it afloat: 1) Other people in my life thought I was free to do whatever, whenever, because I didn't have a job. 2) I let other people think I was free to do whatever, whenever, because I didn't have a job. Thus, my life became about going here, and doing that, and never feeling like I could say No because I didn’t have a job, which meant everything thing else that was not my writing became a priority. And it seemed every time I would chastise myself, get serious about sitting down to write, and actually write, something else would pop up that took me away from my routine. I managed to blame my writing failure and paralysis on everything and everyone else. Even our cluttered house became a reason I couldn't write--because I simply couldn't think for all the shit everywhere. So I decided to de-clutter. And when that didn't work, another excuse emerged.

So I got a part-time teaching job at a community college. Teaching one class monopolized my time. At the end of one semester, I was tired of reading essays and arguing with students about grades, and I was only $3,000 richer. I relished the idea of getting back to writing once I got the time-management thing down for the next semester.

Until B and I moved to San Diego. We had a tiny little one-bedroom apartment. It was clean and clutter-free, and the perfect little haven for my writer-ly endeavors. I did research, I entered contests, I submitted poetry to various literary journals, and I wrote and wrote and wrote, changing my memoir into a Young Adult novel, re-writing the crap out of it, bleeding it dry, and coming to the realization that my book might actually be good now that it has a purpose, a target audience, and an actual plot. I got so close to finishing my 330-page revision, I could taste it, like sugary candy on my tongue.

And then I got injured. Forget the surgeries I'd had--one in November and one in June--I was laid up with a severely sprained wrist and major tissue damage to my left hip/leg/butt due to a fall.

And then we moved back to Redondo Beach. And I became overwhelmed again with stuff. I wrote a little, but then, days were taken up with other duties and responsibilities.

And then I was asked back to Girls Inc., where, as a writing coach, I assisted a small group of girls with writing their scholarship essays. I thought about turning the position down, since the center is 40 miles away and a permanent move to San Diego lurked around the bend. But I took the job. And I told myself I would write in the mornings before work. Ha! I worked two days a week, leaving my house at 1:30 P.M. and getting home between 8:30 and 9 most days--and getting home at after midnight three successive days the last week because it was crunch time. I was mentally spent. Another small paycheck in hand, I had been swindled by the prospect of a part-time job that would allow me time to write.

The truth is, I loved that job and love the girls I worked with. Helping them learn about writing and supporting them as they developed their harrowing life stories into meaningful essays was one of the most rewarding and fun things I have ever been a part of. And if they all get a $20,000 national scholarship for college because I offered my time, talent, and love--well, then, I'd say there is nothing more successful.

The job ended last week and the girls will find out the scholarship results in February. Either they will get a visit at their school from the Girls Inc. director, who will smile big while holding a bouquet of flowers as she congratulates them; or they will get an apologetic phone call. Two years ago, all five scholarship candidates won $20,000. So there's no pressure for them all the win this year. The pressure may be all in my head.

Maybe I’m just excited because as I write this, I am actually writing this. As much as I'd like to say I am a writer, I've battled with the defeatist thought that I am not a writer. But no one needs to be committed every moment to her dream to claim that dream a reality. And I must stop fear from telling me I am just a girl without a job (a.k.a. a purpose).

So, the next chapter begins. My life is not predictable. I don't know when or if I will freelance again. I don't know when I will publish an actual poem instead of ushering in the rejection notices like pebbles in the wind. I don't know when I will finish my novel. But that's okay. I'm close--real close. I need to keep reminding myself that I do know who I am. I am a person. I am a homemaker and a wife. I am a friend and a daughter and a sister. I am an educator. I am a writer. I am all of these things. 

To endure is to burn--to experience the nothings and learn the munificent ways in which they are somethings. For if we never feel low, how can we know the high when it hits us? For if we ourselves never burn, how can we light the path? And if the purpose of life lay in the destination, I might be content to resign myself to yet another binge-watch of some show I don't even know about--because Sons of Anarchy was disgustingly delicious. But life is all about the journey. And isn't it sweet.

Moncho

When I think of Moncho I think of all the wrongs I should have righted before they became wrongs.  It's like I stepped in a puddle I saw coming and owned the water in my shoe and laughed about it like it's what I wanted in the first place.  And then came the regret.  And then the confusion.  And then the anger.  First at myself.  And then at Moncho.
Moncho is the temptation and the curse, the decision and the knowledge, the hope and despair.  And if you don't have a Moncho, you did.  Or you will.  Everyone has a Moncho at some point, even if he doesn't show up on your doorstep or look you square in your self-conscious face in the middle of the night when you turned around and least expected him but saw him anyway even though you never thought you would.
And Moncho knows exactly what he's doing.  He's a goalie, a score keeper, an ice-skater, and hunter, and he will run his bowie knife right through the guts of your perfectly salted plan.  And he will leave you alone to think about the mistakes you made.  Because you made them, not him.  He just happened to get in the way.  Moncho is always in the way.  Literally.  And then he's all you can think about until you want to puke because you're still a little sick about it and wounded, too.  Moncho is the one you thought you could trust out of everyone.  But Moncho is a trick, a monolithic, illusory, sparkly new thing that turns out to be that which you should've left alone.  But you let him in, and now he's your secret, and you wear him like cheap perfume, like smudged lipstick, like a life jacket, because he knows, too, what can tempt you.  He took a big risk because he was the one with nothing to lose, so what did it matter to him if he couldn't make you break your diet or your promise or you knuckles on the table of regret.  He's no longer innocent, but he's not guilty either. 
And he doesn't even have the sense to consider the ramifications of Moncho.  Moncho is mindless.  Now put Moncho out of your mind.