Panic!

The thought of having a job gives me an ulcer. You would think I’m lazy if you read just that line, but it’s the truth (well, almost the truth – it definitely gives me acid reflux, if not an ulcer, not yet anyway). I can’t even picture myself getting in my car and going to work every day, nine to five, coming home, going back the next day. Now, before you get to thinking, “that spoiled bitch, I have a job, I have to go every day”, let me tell you what my schedule is like. I do have weeks off at a time, but when I go to work, I don’t go for eight hours, I go for fifteen, sometimes eighteen. When I go to work, often I will work for three weeks without a single day off. What am I thinking? Do you know what working fifteen hours a day for even one week does to your body? I used to be able to bounce back in a day or two—sleep for twelve hours and Bob’s Your Uncle, good as new. Not anymore. Now I’m half awake for half a week. Now I’m brain dead and bone weary. It’s catching up with me, this life-style.
What brought this panic on was a question my husband asked me: “So what are you going to do after school is over?” I thought we had discussed that. He was surprised to hear me say I would not be commuting into the city every day to work at what he imagined to be a fabulous literary job (anyone know of any fabulous literary jobs?). I told him I would rather keep doing what I’m doing, shit, doesn’t he know about my plan to be a freelance writer, making plenty of money, selling a novel? Why is he talking about me having a job? I thought he said I wouldn’t have to work, that I could stay home and write, and now he’s talking about a JOB??
I just don’t know what is wrong with me, that I can’t be tied down to a schedule. I have to be able to see the light at the end of the tunnel. I can work for hours on end, day after day, if I know that it is a finite job. I’ve worked for thirty-two hours straight before. I’d rather do that than have a schedule?? Maybe it is the shining hope of possibility that keeps me from committing to a routine. Maybe it all boils down to my romantic spirit. That is what I'm going to tell myself, anyway.