a quarter-life crisis

I feel myself getting discouraged. Again. Worse, perhaps, is that I feel discouraged about being discouraged because Joel and I just moved into our own place again, which I've been looking forward to for months. I was seeing this as my opportunity to start some new things, to create a lifestyle that allows for the time to write and do my own thing and work on my own projects and essentially follow my dreams. We've been here for a week and I haven't done anything yet. I have sat down multiple times to start writing a new story or drawing a new picture and my whole being freezes up and nothing happens. It's frustrating, but not new. I have had this problem before. I have also only been here a week, so I admit that it's a little premature to jump the gun and say I am incapable of accomplishing anything. So while all this is annoying, it is not in fact the problem.

The reason I am really discouraged is because I just got a job promotion. This is discouraging because I never actually wanted a job to begin with. I want to be a starving artist. I used to be a preschool teacher and I quit that job so I could be a starving artist. Then one month Joel and I were desperately strapped for money (which, granted, is what happens to starving artists). Joel already works full time. So I said, "Well, maybe I could work one day a week somewhere." I very quickly got a job as a childcare provider at a parent/child program, one day a week. Good. Some extra money, and I still had four weekdays to myself. Hurray.

Well, then my employer asked if I could provide childcare at another program on Fridays. "Okay," I said, because it's only for a few hours and the Friday group is much different than the other group, so the job is genuinely fun. Life went on, until a couple weeks ago when my employer promoted me to child programming coordinator and gave me another day of work. Now I work three days a week and my job actually has more responsibilities than simply showing up each day. I am so frustrated. This is not what I wanted, and yet I ended up here why? Because as much as I don't like it, it's easier to do this than trust myself with something else? Because I can't say "no" to people? Because for some reason I decided to take Early Childhood Education in college, so now everyone in the country knows me as an Early Childhood Educator and I cannot for the life of me figure out how to send out the message: "No, I don't want to do this work anymore, I want to be a writer," which, incidentally is what I have ALWAYS wanted to do, since I was seven years old, even while I was in college learning how to be an Early Childhood Educator. This is so frustrating. Taking Early Childhood Education in college was the worst decision I ever made, because now it follows me around everywhere I go, getting in the way of other, more interesting opportunities. No one thinks I'm a writer. People are suprised when they find out I enjoy art, let alone create it. Instead, everyone looks at me and thinks, "Look, there's an Early Childhood Educator. I should ask her to look after my kids." I don't want people to think that anymore. I don't want people to see me that way anymore. And yet, because people do know I'm an ECE, I only encounter ECE opportunities. And, because I do need to make some money, I feel forced into taking those ECE opportunities because nothing ever happens in any other way. And because I start working so much as an ECE, I have less time to pursue other things, and then I become more and more of an ECE and less and less of a writer. This is like cracking an addiction to cocaine. It's discouraging.

So, instead of starting my new life at my new apartment by writing a novel, I have become a child programming coordinator.

Good thing I still have Mondays and Tuesdays off to complain about it on my blog.