It's 3:08 AM and I'm still awake. Not wide awake. 75% maybe? I'm still awake because I'm an insomniac. I'm an insomniac because I'm stressed most of the time I that I think about the next thing that I have to do. And the next thing is never alone. It's never one thing. It's a shotgun blast of many, many fulfilling project and opportunities. A metric fuck-ton of big dreams and slim to jack-shit budgets. The things I've taken on in my life have all lead me to greater things and incredible people and experiences. Payment is not one of these things.
I look forward, and I budget during the wee-hours. I do what responsible people do when they want something. I brainstorm and I ask the questions: Do I have enough cash to get this going? And if not: How much will I have to work/how much do I need/and what will I have to do to make this happen? I spend a great deal of time trying to budget my time, willpower and finances to fulfill many, many dreams, mine and those of others, and usually I come up on top! Or at the very least near the top with room to improve. And for years this has been fine. I've been happy while not having a savings and a solid 100% that I don't have any real monetary assets beyond three figures. As long as the projects got done, I was happy and reasonably healthy.
I'm still happy, and every day I get stronger, but today I realized something: The relative success of my projects and my ability to stay afloat financially has been largely luck based. I've made enough due to commissions/gifts/flukes and the like. When it's flowing, the luck and money, I'm smiling. But I've relied so heavily, subconsciously, on this luck based income that I had no plan for when/if/should it bottom out and leave me high and dry. And here we come to why I'm awake at now 3:16 AM (typing is hard when I'm stressed).
The money's gone. Okay, not gone, but definitely to a point that I need to be fairly concerned. I've never been here before. Not like this. And it's not that I'm afraid of being here or not used to it either, it's that I sit and ponder what loop hole for circumstance that I might be able to fall into and I'm just not finding one this time. I hit a wall, if you will, and the only thing that I can actually come up with is that my usual brand of dumb-luck just isn't working. As much of a planner as I am, I never truly factored in the "real world." The holy shit moments when budget is actually screwed. Every time the money as always come close to running out, I would get either a gift, or a random ass gig that let me float a bit more (save for a horrific year in college back in early 2000. Eggs, rice, occasional ramen. Always hungry. Always tired. Always stressed. Nervous breakdown. 'Nuff said).
It never once occurred to me that my budgeting wasn't accurate, because I was actually factoring in random-ass "what if" possibilities into paychecks. But they are gone, these moments and I just now realized why. I have been drastically changing my life for the past year for the better. It's all good stuff! However, I was still planning my budget according to how I'd been up until this past year. I've cut out some income spots that used to give me good ol' rando checks, but still included them in my plans. And so we return to the why of my insomnia. Decisions.
It's all simple and annoying: I have to make a few big boy decisions in the next couple of days. I have to evaluate my dreams, plans, job, etc, and some things won't make the cut. Some of these things are minor and include petty shit that I don't need. Others are much larger. Others include dreams that I have that I'll have to pass on if I can't figure something out. There's a very good chance that these dreams, these big things, will not be possible in any way right now. There's one very expensive one that I'd been working toward off and on that will most probably lose. Primarily because I just don't make enough. But that's a part of what being a real adult is. You must admit where you're weak in order to become stronger. This is my weakness.
It is not a good feeling, admitting weakness and accepting change. But it's not bad, either. It's also not that earth-shattering, when I get down to it, it just sucks. It blows, having to admit your plans are screwed and that you have to drop a portion of opportunities because you lack funding. It's the worst real world slap in the dick that you have to deal with. Money makes the world go round. Just as Joel Gray.
So here I am: being a good man, evaluating my situation, preparing to do the right thing, the adult, responsible, irritating-assed thing. I know the right decision, and I'll see it through in a proper way, but it doesn't make stepping down from a big dream any easier.
I'll be better for it in the short and long, though.
And it is with a sigh of relief, pride and slight cynical snark that I write these next words: It's time to grow up. It's time to be the man that I've always wanted to be, to be the hero that I idolize in my friends and family and mentors. I am a good man, a driven dreamer with more strength and control than I have allowed myself. I take my first step into adulthood, into the life that I've always wanted, that I've been working forward to for so long. I do so by removing my childish mindset in planning, by admitting my greatest fears and weaknesses and by not overcoming them, but by leaving them behind in favor of greater strength and humility.
I read this back over at 3:50 AM after writing it. Still couldn't sleep. It's a much needed change, the new path I'm setting out on. I like this new path. I'm a bit scared to leave some things of myself behind, but I know that it is the right thing to do. It's the right thing to do. The decision still fuckin' blows and I'm sad that I have to make it, but it is the right thing to do.
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