(note – this was written a few weeks ago. more updates to come. swearsies)

if i were not finished with my full time job in three short days, my head would be spinning right off and i’d probably be curled in the fetal position begging someone to make it all stop.

and this has nothing to do with my job being awful – on the whole, it’s pretty great. and a huge part of me is sad to be leaving, even though i do not have the brain space or power to even process those feelings in the moment. no, i’ve got a lot of work right now – and i suppose that’s a really incredible thing, entering my first month of self employment. i should be grateful, and i AM grateful. i’m sort of just waiting for the moment when i can do it, without worrying that i’m going to drop one of my very many spinning plates. i feel like i’m walking a highwire slicked with oil.

you know, if you were a person in my life and i told you about this, i would intimate that i haven’t worked very hard and am not working very hard. i’d tell you i had a very reasonable wind-down schedule for my job, and that my client work requires no more than 10-15 hours a week and i should be able to handle that. i would tell you about how i think i must be weak because i’m always so tired – about how i had my thyroid tested because i am always so. damn. tired. i would tell you it wasn’t really that hard, i just think it’s hard because i am me. you surely wouldn’t find it hard, but i do.

it’s total bullshit, if you haven’t figured that out by now. i’ve made an entire fucking career of telling myself, telling you, that i somehow haven’t done enough – but i have done enough, and it’s finally starting to show. i have worked and AM working my entire ass off. i’m juggling three clients, two of whom require near daily attention, on top of full time work. i am sitting down at the computer post-work or on the weekends the majority of the days of the week. i am hustling, i have BEEN hustling, and it is about time that i owned that.

saying out loud, understanding for the first time, that i’m working hard and that i’m allowed to say it…it’s a big thing, for me. in high school, i took every AP class i could – one in 10th grade, four in 11th, five in 12th. i have met no one else who has done that. i went to activities after school and i went to work after activities and i came home and ate dinner at my giant L desk, head buried in a textbook. i went to sleep and set my alarm for four am so i could get up and study. i could never do enough, unless i was doing more than anyone else, unless my eyes were burning from exhaustion. it was almost more important than my actual grades – the idea that i was trying harder, working harder than anyone. the only way to do enough was to give everything.

it’s the last time in my life i felt like i was actually working hard, until this past sunday. i have work due every monday for a client, so nearly every sunday for the past several months, i’ve sat down for a chunk of hours and just done it. and it kind of sucked because sunday nights are a little sacred for me, they’re about recuperating the last bits of my energy for the week ahead, but i sucked it up and i did it and i’ve gotten better and more efficient every week. and i finally just kind of realized, in the middle of this chunk of work, that i’m doing it. i’m doing this thing, and i deserve credit for it.

there’s a lot i’ve been doing. for a long time. i’ve worked really hard, and it feels so good to actually feel that, to let my pride swell.