Woke at 4, got up for a while, went back to bed, stayed awake till the alarm went off then went back to sleep and dreamt about the Crazy Frog, of all people. Haven’t thought about him in ages. A bit more explicit than my usual dreams. We had just got naked then loads of people started coming into the room. Woke up and got up at 6:40. Pretty tired now. I’ve got my dreamweaver evening class tonight, hope I can stay awake.
I fell into an old, familiar pattern of thinking yesterday, and couldn’t see a way out. I’d more or less made up my mind that, emotionally, I have to go, it’s just a question of finding an exit strategy. I need to find somewhere to run to.
But I need to be able to support myself. I won’t take anything from him. And to earn enough from my present activities to pay rent and bills, I would have to take on a lot more work – probably another couple of parishes at least. And that’s just not on. So, I would have to get a proper, ordinary job. And I just can’t see how I’m going to find one. If I could find one commensurate with my qualifications and abilities, I’d be well set up, but I don’t see any way that is going to happen. The chances of anyone giving me a job like that are even less now than they were three years ago, or five years ago, or ten years ago. It just won’t happen. And if it did, I’d have to give up on everything else, the writing, the dtp/web design, the research, because I know when I was working full time before, I didn’t have time for any of those things.
So, this is what it has always come down to, to have any of those things I have to stay with Mr Meal Ticket. That is the compromise I have made, to try and give myself space to do some of those things I wanted to do. (Except, of course, I’m not doing them anyway. But I might do, one day.)
But when I looked at it yesterday morning, it seemed that that was the only way – to stay and try to find satisfaction in those things, to accept that this is the way life is, and I’m not going to be able to change it, no point railing against it, no point beating myself up over it, just accept it, give in to it, find ways of occupying myself, throw myself into work, try to make it as good as it can be. After all, whoever said any of us were entitled to find happiness in this life? And what does that mean anyway?
I was talking to a friend about it after writing, and she said: ‘You have choices’. Do I? Do I really? Or is it just Hobson’s choice?
Round and round the circle I go. The only way out would be if something totally unexpected came out of the blue to break the deadlock – like, someone offering me a job, or, even better, a long term, reliable project that I could carry on doing in the way I have been.
I’ve been told I have a talent for writing, I’ve been told I have an amazing brain, I’ve been told I’m an attractive woman, and I do believe those things, although it’s hard for me to admit it, because I was raised to think it was wrong to say (or even think) such things about myself. But realistically, am I ever going to finish my novel, complete my research, find the love of my life?