The other night, honestly, I was feeling pretty low, and I’d been venting by sniping at Peter, who had seemed to be sulky and angry.

“Well you haven’t exactly been a bowl of sunshine these past few days, either,” he said.

Well, I hadn’t, I mournfully confessed, the tears rising. I was not enjoying my job. I hated being yanked around, told to do one thing one day and another thing the next. I was being pressured to finish the directory listings, like yesterday – a task I don’t like and am not good at. I don’t like this, I said, I don’t like this at all.

Most of all, I was feeling angry about the fact that these weeks of working have meant very little painting – and if I was looking at a future of very little painting, I was looking at a future I didn’t like much.

So what was I doing? Why was I working – in journalism, no less – when all I really want to do is paint?

I felt angry, I felt sad, I felt trapped, I felt sulky and whiny and miserable. I could hear my voice rising, and shaking, tears and frustration all wound together –

And then it all changed.

Just like that, I realized that I wasn’t going to quit this job, and so this, all this misery, all this whining, all this anger – it was just me, stamping my feet and jumping up and down, throwing a tantrum, crying “poor me.”

It was all optional, every bit of it.

The truth is, I have a job, with a paycheck and health insurance. Very soon, I am going to be done with the directory listings, and I’m going to be out in the community, meeting people and writing stories.

And I can make time to paint.

Sure, there will be many, many days when I have to do stuff I don’t want to do, when I have to follow instructions – even instructions I feel are stupid, pointless, hysterical. Yup. That’s why they’re paying me. That’s why it’s called work.

Peter and I, and our dogs, are worlds better off now than we were six weeks ago. And I am grateful, grateful beyond belief that I have an income, a way to make a living while I work to make a career.

——

It is not too late to commission me to make a painting for you for the holidays! Send me a photo – of a landscape, a beloved pet, a house, a garden that you love, and I will have a beautiful palette-knife painting for you within a few weeks. The commissions are rolling in, so do it sooner, rather than later! Email me at carrieBjacobson@gmail.com and we can get the process going.

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