Babysitting My Bullsh*t

I hate my teaching job.

Like H-A-T-E it.

I hate sitting in a classroom all day babysitting 8th graders.

I hate constantly reminding them to do their work. Watching as they sneak every opportunity I’m not watching them talk to each other, or eat, or chew gum, or disrupt my class.

Why can’t I work with adults??? Why didn’t I simply chuck my lady balls over my shoulder, suck down the fear, imposter syndrome, and procrastination excuses and build my writing career like a badass Betty instead of settle for a paycheck and paying my bills over a life of spontaneous RV travel that surely by now I’d be making my way toward the cattle of Montana cowboys that most certainly are waiting for me at the end of my destiny?

Why am I such a coward? How did it come to this? How can I fix all of it and finally find financial security while following my fate as a plucky writer and heroine of my own contemporary western Rom Com?

I’ve spent twenty years learning all I can about writing and marketing and copywriting. I’ve spent the past twenty years learning that I don’t want to be a marketer or copywriter for others. I want to write for myself. I want to write funny books, humor memoirs and play with my dogs while fulfilling my fantasy to renovate my 1940s home into a throwback of 1950s decor full of black and white checkered linoleum and a jukebox in the kitchen— a record player belting out Sinatra and World War 2 tunes that remind us all just how great a generation they really were.

But I have an evil belief system that tells me I can’t make money doing that. I am a self-published author of over 50 books, mostly about writing but I don’t market them because I have bought into the belief system that I can’t make a full-time income as an author. Even though they’re the only thing that has paid me royalties for the past 13 years, I don’t believe I can make a living from them.

I’m too old to be here. I’m too young to buy into this bullshit. I’m annoyed that I’ve allowed myself to fall into this hole for so long.

I’m ashamed that I’ve indulged in my fear and I’ve reaped exactly what I’ve sowed. Especially because I don’t see myself like that.

I’ve been a “go-getter” my whole life. A massive action taker. Someone to be admired and looked up to, not pitied.

But it seems as of the last 20 years and a hundred extra pounds, I haven’t been representing like a baller. My ball is flat and I have no bounce in my game.

And now I’m panicking. There’s a major scarcity factor playing out here. The FOMO of all FOMO’s and it’s slowly killing me.

I have to do something before I am buried in years of settling for a paycheck instead of a perfect life.

Or a fate worse than death—- becoming ordinary. Just like everyone else. Never standing out again and being special. Or noteworthy. Or admired. Or envied.

Ugh.

Recently, I’ve renewed my walk with God and He told me something about a month ago and has been echoing it to me. He said…

“JUST CREATE THE ART”

“The art” I have interpreted is my writing. I believe He is telling me to do the thing that I should have been doing all along. Instead, I’ve been planning and plotting and false starting and wasting my time on a strategy blueprint of “what if” scenarios down the road that had absolutely nothing to do with sitting my butt in a chair and writing the damn thing.

Perhaps He is trying to give me the answer that I am so painfully asking about. Perhaps He is trying to get me to practice the art so that opportunities will come my way and I’m fighting Him because I’m all caught up in the umbilical cord of my own fear.

Why is that?

Why would I or anyone for that matter choose to stay in the struggle instead of take the advice, take the help, or take the opportunity?

I have a theory. Not a glamorous theory, but a theory nonetheless.

As painful as it feels, it’s still comfortable and familiar and certain to stay where we are rather than venture out of our cozy warm torment to journey into something that we desire.

And that could be for a couple of reasons. Likely, we’re terrified that our dreams will be tarnished by the possibility of failing at the thing we spend years idealizing. Maybe we fear our dreams aren’t big enough, good enough, or delicious enough in reality compared to how we’ve shaped it in our imaginations.

But worse than that?

Maybe we’re terrified we’ll actually succeed at it. Because that means that we will also leave our certainty of struggle for a new world that we are now required to navigate without anything holding us up or reassuring us we won’t be disappointed.

Either way, it’s terrifying. It’s terrifying to fail and it’s terrifying to stay where we are.

But what do I know about my own life so far?

I know that the past 20 years have felt like stagnation. Floating on remnants of an ice berg whose story is much bigger underneath the watery foam slapping against the ice.

I can choose to play out the last 40 years of my life the same way or I can make the decision to slide on my orange floaties, pull up my swimmies, and jump into a pool of my own promise.

God assures me that now is the time to relax and “just create the art.” I am hopeful that He will show me what to do before I have a nervous breakdown (too late), search for the nearest theater exit, and hamster wheel the next thirty years of my life the way I’ve done the past twenty.

Have you suffered from this? What did you do? Have you found the answer or are you still struggling? I could really use some insight on this. I don’t want to die being classified as one of those people they say had “so much potential.”

I want to be the gal you remember for giving you funny, relatable stories even if I am the dysfunctional heroine of my own tragedy. It’d be nice to at least live out my years writing full-time.

Honestly, anything would be better than teaching 8th graders. Except, of course, for being an 8th grader (thank you God for leading me out of that apocalyptic nightmare).

Because when you find your fate, you escape your fear.

And when you escape your fear, you’ll never have to lesson plan— or babysit— again.