The winds are changing around these parts..
Its two in the morning and I'm finally home. After being on my feet for nearly 12 hours it feels so good to be here laying down, feet up, typing away, with my baby sleeping soundly in the next room. I've waited for this all night. It was a little crazy at the restaurant tonight, and I'm beat.
As I turned onto our sleeping Brooklyn block and called the babysitter to bring Nico downstairs, all I could think about was falling into bed. But my Nico needed her late night walk, so on I went, for a few more blocks. Gaby is still in midtown mixing sound for a plethora of bands. I hope he will be home before 4am. And I hope baby girl will sleep in tomorrow, but that's not likely. She wakes up bright and happy with the daylight, ready to take on the world. And I love that about her.
I never thought that I would fantasize about having a 9-5, never. And to tell you the truth it sounds awful to me most of the time. But sometimes, at the end of long nights like these, it starts to look good. Except for the 9am to be at work part, and the not spending days with my family part, and the corporate part. For as long as I've been working I've held unconventional hours, because, frankly, it feels more natural to me. And it has always worked out, it is working out now. But for the first time it is beginning to feel a little bit harder.
I try to never write about the bad, the hard, the negative here on my little space of the internet. Partly because I like to stay in a place of gratitude for all of the wonder and love around me; and when I focus on the good, I end up seeing more good everywhere. But mostly because what some might see as negative, I try to see as an opportunity for change. And change is beautiful. It is inevitable. And it leads to great things.
So its becoming more and more clear to me that a great change is on the horizon for this family of mine. Gaby and I have been setting the wheels in motion for a new career path for me, one that I have dreamt about and felt pulled towards for years. I have always worked so hard, out there in the city, day and night, to make ends meet, to make it. I really do pride myself on being a hard worker. And then one day I realized that maybe, just maybe, if I worked this hard at what I love, a whole new world would open.
So I have decided to finally put myself out there and try to build a career based on creativity. For me, creativity is life. It is what drives me everyday. We are still working out the details, and I will continue to pull long hours in the restaurants and bars awhile, but I have a plan. And I am taking the plunge. In a few months I hope to be working for myself (gasp!), which sounds so appealing and liberating. It will be a tremendous amount of work, but good work- gratifying work.
I am still wrapping my head around the notion of both Gaby and I being self-employed/freelancers. I think it will bring a much anticipated flexibility to our family, along with a bit of uncertainty. But I won't allow for fear or nervousness. I am quite certain that following my dream is the only way to go, that good things are coming, and that this is all working out for a reason. When I think about this new future that we are carving out for ourselves, I think of one of my all time favorite sayings, a quote by John Burroughs: leap and the net will appear.
And at the end of these long toilsome nights, when it feels like I am giving my all just to get by, I think about how soon I will miss these early days of juggling jobs and coming home at all hours. I will miss the energy and kinship of the industry. I will miss working a "foodie" job and learning more about cuisine and cooking than I could have ever imagined. So I will appreciate it now. Because the times they are a changin'.
Out with the old and in with the new. We're really doing it.
