Keeping The Faith
....can be very very hard sometimes.
Like really hard.
You wonder: am I crazy? Stubborn? Fucked up? Is my thinking off? Why am I doing this?
Keeping the faith is not hard because of God. If you believe in God... if you really listen, really open your eyes, you see the little signs that tell you that faith is real, that you will be OK. God will provide.
But then the devil starts talking. Telling you all those truths you want to hear. Telling OTHER people's truths, the ones that make you doubt your own.
And then the fear sets in. The blind, irrational, all-consuming fear. Your worst nightmare.
I am still in limbo about my apartment. I got the letter from the court telling me my landlord intends to evict me. They gave me 30 days to do something about it. The best I could do was go sit in the welfare office all (fucking) day to apply for a "one-shot". And its been "pending" ever since. My 30 days are up. I am now waiting for the Marshall's notice. I hope my landlord doesn't' do it before Thanksgiving, but the Marshall's notice is eminent. And then I go back to court to ask them to wait, please wait a little bit longer... I'm waiting (and waiting) to hear from "Oneshot".
Suppose Oneshot doesn't happen for me? It's entirely possible. I owe upwards of $15,000, and every day the meter is ticking.
Why that much? Because really, my landlord is good people. They saw I paid them back the last time I was late... they know my story. But they are hurting. The worst part about all this is I know my not paying them affects their family.
My first thought in the morning when I wake up is "How the fuck am I getting out of this mess?" My daily prayer is to figure out how to pay these people back.
I question myself... what could I do differently? Am I crazy to want to stay the course? I know I've got talent, and even better, have skills, real skills, to back up that talent. Why is life so hard?
And my worst fear? As I walk the Sun through the A,C,E station at 14th Street when taking him to school, the homeless sit on the benches in the long walkway, their feet propped on their bags, asleep. And lately, I've seen young mothers, their faces hidden behind their baby carriages or behind a sign that says "I am homeless. I am hungry. I have two children. Please help." Hardened New Yorker that I am, I know these people are for real... their shame is palpable. They don't meet your eyes when you look at them. And I don't have a dollar to give them because I think, that will be me... that could be me very soon.
I know I don't do business well. Not for myself. I'm great at running other people's things... just not my own. Because it's at odds with creating my own. Two very different thought processes, and it's hard to switch back and forth. I end up being behind in both the business and the creating.
But I have to keep the faith. If I don't, I WILL fail. I know, when I examine myself (and I do that frequently) that I DO apply to jobs. I DID redo my resume, my website is just about done. I applied to P&G recently. For a design job. They didn't ask for samples of my work but had this long weird reasoning test that I'm sure I failed miserably. I couldn't find the patterns. I wanted to ask the Sun about it, but that would be cheating. I got an email from them about three days later, thanking me for my application but that I didn't match what they were looking for (in that ENTIRE FUCKING COMPANY???? REALLY????) and that I could apply again in a year. A FUCKING YEAR??? ARE YOU KIDDING ME?
This experience only reinforced what I felt when I applied to P&G... I don't really want to work for them in the first place. At all. I just need a fucking job. Corporations suck ass.
So I HAVE to keep the faith. I HAVE to stay the course. I have to figure out how to do the business and the creating at the same time... or find someone willing to do the business for me and take a cut.
And I am ever-hopeful. There is always something for me to hold on to... there has to be or I fail. And what I'm holding on to is that my pictures from Peru were put on display at a salon I hosted, and it went pretty well. I broke even in the cost to put on the show... and am still selling prints. And they will be online soon. I had another bright idea, too... I just have to execute it. So there is hope. I just hope that things break before the Marshall's notice...
Like really hard.
You wonder: am I crazy? Stubborn? Fucked up? Is my thinking off? Why am I doing this?
Keeping the faith is not hard because of God. If you believe in God... if you really listen, really open your eyes, you see the little signs that tell you that faith is real, that you will be OK. God will provide.
But then the devil starts talking. Telling you all those truths you want to hear. Telling OTHER people's truths, the ones that make you doubt your own.
And then the fear sets in. The blind, irrational, all-consuming fear. Your worst nightmare.
I am still in limbo about my apartment. I got the letter from the court telling me my landlord intends to evict me. They gave me 30 days to do something about it. The best I could do was go sit in the welfare office all (fucking) day to apply for a "one-shot". And its been "pending" ever since. My 30 days are up. I am now waiting for the Marshall's notice. I hope my landlord doesn't' do it before Thanksgiving, but the Marshall's notice is eminent. And then I go back to court to ask them to wait, please wait a little bit longer... I'm waiting (and waiting) to hear from "Oneshot".
Suppose Oneshot doesn't happen for me? It's entirely possible. I owe upwards of $15,000, and every day the meter is ticking.
Why that much? Because really, my landlord is good people. They saw I paid them back the last time I was late... they know my story. But they are hurting. The worst part about all this is I know my not paying them affects their family.
My first thought in the morning when I wake up is "How the fuck am I getting out of this mess?" My daily prayer is to figure out how to pay these people back.
I question myself... what could I do differently? Am I crazy to want to stay the course? I know I've got talent, and even better, have skills, real skills, to back up that talent. Why is life so hard?
And my worst fear? As I walk the Sun through the A,C,E station at 14th Street when taking him to school, the homeless sit on the benches in the long walkway, their feet propped on their bags, asleep. And lately, I've seen young mothers, their faces hidden behind their baby carriages or behind a sign that says "I am homeless. I am hungry. I have two children. Please help." Hardened New Yorker that I am, I know these people are for real... their shame is palpable. They don't meet your eyes when you look at them. And I don't have a dollar to give them because I think, that will be me... that could be me very soon.
I know I don't do business well. Not for myself. I'm great at running other people's things... just not my own. Because it's at odds with creating my own. Two very different thought processes, and it's hard to switch back and forth. I end up being behind in both the business and the creating.
But I have to keep the faith. If I don't, I WILL fail. I know, when I examine myself (and I do that frequently) that I DO apply to jobs. I DID redo my resume, my website is just about done. I applied to P&G recently. For a design job. They didn't ask for samples of my work but had this long weird reasoning test that I'm sure I failed miserably. I couldn't find the patterns. I wanted to ask the Sun about it, but that would be cheating. I got an email from them about three days later, thanking me for my application but that I didn't match what they were looking for (in that ENTIRE FUCKING COMPANY???? REALLY????) and that I could apply again in a year. A FUCKING YEAR??? ARE YOU KIDDING ME?
This experience only reinforced what I felt when I applied to P&G... I don't really want to work for them in the first place. At all. I just need a fucking job. Corporations suck ass.
So I HAVE to keep the faith. I HAVE to stay the course. I have to figure out how to do the business and the creating at the same time... or find someone willing to do the business for me and take a cut.
And I am ever-hopeful. There is always something for me to hold on to... there has to be or I fail. And what I'm holding on to is that my pictures from Peru were put on display at a salon I hosted, and it went pretty well. I broke even in the cost to put on the show... and am still selling prints. And they will be online soon. I had another bright idea, too... I just have to execute it. So there is hope. I just hope that things break before the Marshall's notice...
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