Wednesday, June 6, 2012

Tomorrow I take my State Board exam and become a licensed cosmetologist (that is, assuming I pass -which I am). I'm so ready to have it over with that yesterday I was wishing it could've been today and today I'm not even nervous that it's tomorrow. Not even about my 4:30 a.m. alarm because I realized that I'm so rested right now that I'm never tired. What I'm thinking about more than the test, actually, is the fact that after tomorrow I will be ready to start working which will mean this last period of "vacation" is over. I was kind of surprised, actually, at how much I enjoyed this one -with school out of the way and a better idea of what my future will be it was a lot easier to relax and not stress about things than last spring when I didn't know if unemployment would give me benefits, didn't know what kind of job I'd end up with, didn't know if unemployment would let me go to school, and so on. I did a lot more projects last spring when the bank account was a little fluffier, which was fun and important as I needed to keep my hands and my mind busy so as not to worry so much about the aforementioned uncertainties, but while this last stretch was a somewhat "broke" one it was super relaxing and enjoyable as I kind of knew what it was leading to and felt better about relaxing into it rather than working through it.
It's been an interesting time, this period since early last year until now. I realized the other day how much my ideas about work and how to make money have changed and those have been big changes for me. Yesterday I was watching a video on Style Like U (the link takes you to the profile I was watching, actually, because I just adore this guy) and just after I finished it I realized that it had been a long time since I'd wondered how artists and other 'self-employed' (basically) people manage to make a living and feel secure in professions that seem sort of unpredictable and in which the sole responsibility to bring in income is their own. I always remember what Joseph Campbell said about his own work and life, that when you're doing what you want to be doing and should be doing, "doors would open where there were none -where there wouldn't be doors for someone else". (Maybe that's not the exact quote....) And sure, maybe I didn't get to go to Vidal Sassoon on scholarship or something but I realized very quickly that it wouldn't have been what I wanted anyway. The most amazing thing to me this last year was that I was allowed to not work (sort of...) and that I was allowed to choose how I wanted to recreate my life. There was a time I wouldn't have believed that I would be given the opportunity to do all this or that my decisions would have been supported in a way that made it so easy and for all of that I am endlessly grateful.

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