Sometimes I get really disheartened because I have to do so much side-hustling while the “real job” of being a writer — the job that I’m am trained at, good at and want to do — feels like a shell game. I keep doing the work, but the target is always moving and it never seems to pay off.
So then I get doubly irritated when, out of the blue, the equivalent of a third unpaid job falls on me. In September, a bathroom pipe in my condo sprang a leak in the middle of the night. In the morning I was on the phone with tenants, the homeowners’ association, plumbers, water mitigation experts, the insurance company and the (rightfully) very irate downstairs neighbor. And for almost two months, hours of each day was consumed by logistics, and communicating those logistics to all the relevant parties. Because of pandemic-related “supply chain issues,” every two minute visit to the Home Depot website for a part became hours of rabbit holing, scrounging and waiting, and then more hours separately explaining and apologizing for those delays to the tenant, the irate neighbor, etc. It was frustrating.
It was also what what my brother-in-law would call a “First Class Problem.”
Because someone could easily say: “Fuck you… YOU OWN A CONDO IN LOS ANGELES. I’ll take that problem off your hands.”
And that person would be right. I can feel frustrated because maintaining property, is tedious, time consuming, expensive— but I should never forget to feel grateful for the circumstance that makes the problem possible.
Which brings me to the stress and tedium of maintaining my other property — the body I live in. Specifically at this moment, the cancer. I’ve had blood draws and CT scans and doctor’s appointments where we discuss doing things to my body I don’t want to do. I have launched a routine that requires hours each week (if not each day) buying, cleaning, cutting and juicing vegetables, then cleaning the juicer and the entire kitchen which some how ends up covered in a carrot / beet blood splatter. It takes more time to meditate, and read medical journal articles on the internet. I wake up some mornings buzzing with anxiety. I may have mentioned on this blog how I get anxious packing for a trip. I worry about making decisions I’ll regret. What if I bring things I don’t need? What if I don’t bring things I need? And that’s when I’m traveling for a week. So clearly it’s daunting to decide on treatment options that I’ll have to live with for the rest of my life.
But, weird as it seems to say, it is also still a first class problem. I live in a healthy-feeling body — which is an entirely different experience from dealing with all this from a body in pain. I’m editing this as I wait on hold to make a doctor’s appointment because I have health insurance and because my work-from-home situation allows it. My cancer was detected early because I have health care.I’m housed. I have a juicer, access to fresh food and information. And I have friends and family who want to help. I am surrounded by generosity.
The world is touching me, and I am blessed.