Goodbye Money

It seems like just yesterday that I made the 30 second decision to go back to work (as a waitress, not a hooker). But alas, it’s been eight months. Eight months of spending two to three days in another city, away from my husband and only seeing my monster princess in the a.m. And while those circumstances are certainly not the worst case scenario by any means, it was still not ideal. So, as much as we could definitely still benefit from me bringing home some dolla dolla bills y’all each week, we made the decision that I should quit. That way I can be home full-time with Thumper again, and hopefully the lack of bills flowing in my bank account will scare me enough to kick-start my freelance writing career. Seeing as I did legitimately go to college to become a freelance writer.

And that’s the thing. Even though it was totally my decision to quit, and even though Dawson fully supports me, I am freaking out. I started working again to help sustain our finances while we saved for the wedding. When I look back, had we not had the extra income, well, I’m literally almost in tears thinking of the debt we’d have accumulated only in those few months. And even though we no longer have a wedding to save for, we still have every day expenses that I fear one income might not be enough for for too much longer.

I know that I just finished saying I hope this is enough to make me start working independently as a writer, but do you know what statement I heard most often from my teachers in college? That writers make shitty money. Seriously. (No wonder my class of thirty was down to eleven by the time graduation came around.) And there’s no guarantee that anybody ever wants to read what you’ve written, let alone publish it. So I can work my little butt off and create these grand stories and articles until my fingernails fall off but that doesn’t mean I’m guaranteed to ever make a single cent off of it. And that’s fucking terrifying.

The reason why I’m blogging about this is because I’m hoping to hold myself accountable. By putting this goal of mine out there (to actually at least try to be a “professional” writer), I’m hoping that the fear of debt and the fear of not succeeding after having told the whole blogging world that I’m gunna be a rock star writer! will be enough to help me get over the fear of potentially sucking at writing and just do it.

So yes, this week will mark the end of my waitressing career (again) (and hopefully for the last time). But hopefully it will bring about the beginning of something better, maybe not something more financially lucrative, but something that will have more passion than me listing off what beers are on tap for the rest of my life. Goodbye money. Goodbye serving uniform. Goodbye noises everywh—

Oh wait. Wrong story. My bad.

Maybe I should stick to my day job.

-Alice