bethofalltrades

I am constantly innundated with these situations that press the question of:

WHO ARE YOU?

Am I a girl who types and sits in an office for eight hours a day and is pleasant and kind and likes being someone's secretary?

Am I a starving artist who is okay with the instability that comes along with temping because it brings with it great freedom?

Am I going to buy a new pair of high heels or shall I buy a pair of combat boots? (You're not Ani DiFranco, Beth. You're not that indie and you know it.)

There is such fear in me. Fear that I have this obligation to create art and am failing it, fear that an office job will turn me into a drone, fear that living an artist's life will find me at 35 broke, childless and terribly obscure.

I make lists, but how am I supposed to balance the glories of health insurance against the ability to say, "Hey, getting on a bus tomorrow, need to heal" without getting fired? Is there a way to weight a stable income against a manic mind?

Do I just idealize the artist's life? I spend my insomnatic nights reading blog entries of a mad woman who makes her living banging on a piano and standing perfectly still in a public place. Does that sound like heaven to anyone else?

I repeat my mantras, I am not getting older, I will not die young, I have plenty of time for everything that I want, I am not a failure, I am not a worthless piece of driftwood floating at the whim of the current.

When given a choice, why would I choose for life to be hard? Is suffering noble? Must I suffer to be a true artist? Am I okay with counting pennies to pay my rent, or do I like pretty clothes too much? (I like pretty clothes too much.)

If I wake up in an office-- not a cube, an office-- will I feel like I've been duped or will I be relieved that I can finally investigate the meaning of that strange mole on my lower back?

To be perfectly honest (and when am I ever perfectly honest) I could use the chance to build a nest egg. Build a nest egg and then quit my job and land on the steps of an artists' collective and say, "Open the door and let me in, I NEED you!" Save up enough cash to spend a year doing nothing but having piles and piles of babies art.

Nothing is permanent. Making one decision now doesn't mean I can't make a different one later. I am still young.

The funny thing is, if I were still with the Princess, there would be no wracked decision. Go corporate and fuck art, spend your time in bed watching movies and in the kitchen cooking dinner and just let yourself be fucking happy (for a change). I was happy. I was looking forward to a life that included marriage and children-- let's be honest and say that's what I really want.

Now I'm like, well, the suffering has kicked in, why not finally take that trip to New Orleans and take your camera and see what lies beneath the black type in the newspaper? Why the fuck are you trading freedom for security?

Am I exchanging a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage?

Love,
Beth

i want a real life
a real love
one that grows upwards in daylight