An Uncanny Sense of Semicolons

So it's Tuesday, Hump Day Eve. Nothing to report except that yesterday, I woke up with $60.87 in my pocket but had quite a bit more by the end of the day, thanks to some of my very loyal and wonderful clients coming back to me for new projects. I do not yet have all the rent I desperately need, but I certainly received a miracle: a way bigger chunk of it in one day than I ever would have expected. God is a God of miracles, and even one of my non-believing friends, who is well aware of my prayers and answered ones, had to acknowledge, "Jesus is always writing you cheques!" (forgive the "-ques." He's a limey. lol) So, the rent is coming together, albeit slower than I wanted it to, but I am grateful that things are working out. God takes care of us at His own pace, and in a gig-to-gig life, it is astounding to me every time He does. I chose to work for myself, after much prayer and many conversations with people whose judgment I trust, but this means I no longer have the luxury of weekly checks. It means I pay a bit more taxes than others (Yay for double-taxing to punish anyone who dares to become an entrepreneur! The American dream is pretty darn expensive, folks.) It means budgeting is more difficult; half of that income-debt equation is a question mark. But if I can say nothing else for my freelance editing career, I can say it has kept me clinging to prayer and trusting the Lord for every bite of food we eat, every drop of gas we put in my old car, and every shred of clothing we put on our bodies. It has reminded me Who rent and electricity and heat and WI-fi really comes from. I make as much money annually now as I ever did in Cubicle Land, but when I am relying entirely on God to send clientele to me, not lulled into laidback-ness by the routine of a payroll department paying me on a schedule, I do not take it for granted.

  

So, do I regret that I left my 9-to-5 back in 2009 to pursue freelance editing full time? Do I regret that I walked away from weekly checks? Do I now have to work far more hours than I ever did in anyone else's office, sometimes pulling more than one all-nighter a week? Is it stressful that I have to be my own secretary, accountant, and advertising departments, all while not knowing if or when I will have any more business ever again or if the clients I do have will follow through with project or payment commitments (though most are wonderfully generous and professional people who do)? Do the days all blend together when you stumble out to your laptop in your pajamas to work in the morning, only t realize at 2:40 a.m. the next day that you are still in the same pajamas you were wearing the day before because you just got too busy to change? Sure, sometimes I regret it and question my judgment. Sometimes it seems more stressful than it's worth. Sometimes I want to give myself a pink slip. But God has taken care of us with my editing, in spite of close calls with my debts sometimes. Until that stops happening or He leads me elsewhere, I will just keep on editing. I have a passion for writing and for writers, and I have what someone once called "an uncanny sense of semicolons"; long ago, a publisher told me I have "a gift for loving words" too. If I can use any of these "gifts" to be of help to people, I consider that a great privilege. Funny, but in high school one afternoon, sitting up in the Shawnee business classroom next to my favorite Brother electronic typewriter, two of my favorite teachers, Mrs. Richards (formerly Miss Young) and Mrs. Hearlihy, told me they saw me working as an editor someday, maybe for a magazine. I laughed it off back in 1988...yet here I am some 27 years later, doing just that, only for books and academic white papers rather than magazines. I love my work, I adore my clients, I am grateful that I can set my own hours and be at home with my daughter, and I believe this is what God wants me to do at this point in my life, for He has continued to send me clients and projects when I need them most, even when I've made mistakes or haven't been as efficient as I should because I've allowed life to get in the way and distract me. I love what I do, even on the days when I hate it, even if it sometimes means we have one package of ramen in the cupboard and setting up a payment arrangement on the gas bill or turning Netflix off for a couple weeks. Anyone who is in the line of work they want to be in will understand this. As hard as it is, and as much faith and hard work as it requires to work for oneself and rely solely on divine intervention for payday, it is worth it somehow. When it stops being worth it, I'll find something else to do.

So, this Tuesday will consist of hopefully gathering up the rest of my rent and getting it down to my long-suffering and wonderfully amazing landlords (who are blessings to us for sure), editing my little heart out on a long-overdue novel and a section of a genealogy book that just so happens to be about my own Miesse ancestors (coincidence that I landed that job...or maybe not!), tuna salad and roasted sweet carrots for dinner, and a new season of Top Chef or a very old season of The Odd Couple (I used to have a major crush on Oscar) on Hulu when I finally crawl into bed with my lady dogs and my sock monkey and Slurpee II (yes, I named my quilt. I'm immature. Sue me if you don't like it.) Don't be jealous of my exciting life, folks...but do pray that I'll be able to handle all the excitement in some sort of organized fashion, because I've got a whole lot of plates to spin, even if I'm spinning them all without ever leaving my quiet house on top of our quiet hill.