There Is Always Time
It’s not that I became indifferent. I just became uninvested. Nor did I become lazy. I just became interested in everything else. After twenty five years of career, I came to the point where I understood that it was unlikely I’d get my boss’ job when he left, but how a peace had come over me whenever I thought that. I’d spent a quarter of a century climbing the ladder, and only now, near the finish, did I realize that I had enough. Not that I’d had enough. But that I had enough. That I was enough. And in that enoughness I’d found a space of happiness. A place I could indulge all the things I wanted to do, even if most of them started by doing nothing. It was a place where I’d write unburdened from being a writer. I’d create without the shackles of being a creator. I’d make independently of any of the economics of having to make a living. I already had a living. And that living was enough to power everything else.
I’d stopped thinking about the work which brings in the money and started to think about something else. A life’s work. The work of writing down the stories of my life, even as many of them were still happening. The work of building writing into a daily habit, no matter how small. The work to go just that little bit further out into the ocean than was comfortable each time. That place where my feet no longer touched the floor. But also a place where the peace of doing nothing was also the work. The work of just listening. Of just calming a racing mind. Of decompressing from a day in the newsroom.
But now I think about what’s next. I’ve always thought about what’s next. I realize how lucky I am to have reached this place already. How some people never get there. And if the previous twenty five were characterized by career, the next twenty five might well be characterized by a life well lived in pursuit of doing what I love. I’m still finding it hard to reconcile writing and having written, but the more honest I get in my writing, the easier it gets. It’s not reaching out, it’s reaching in. A safety in writing but less secure in posting. Who even says anything needs to be posted anyway. But there’s a selfishness which comes with this. It’s not an altruistic, selfless place. I am protective of my time and ruthless in my taking of it. The thing is that there is always time, and there’s no longer any need to write as if it’s running out.
