Life Bites
Today is my fiftieth birthday.
I am not going to be depressed today, because, really, what's the point? But, looking back, it is clear that I have managed to do an astounding amount of nothing in fifty years.
On the plus side, I have a good education, a job that pays well, I own my own home, I own my own business, I am an SF writer and I have sold stories to some of the top magazines in the business. I don't feel 'old.' I am in decent physical shape (by which I mean I could be in better shape, but there's nothing preventing me from getting there). I find there there is a tremendous amount that I want to learn and read and do.
On the negative side, I hate my job. It is the kind of job that masquerades as professional but really isn't, is stressful and busy but not intellectually rewarding and I have stayed in it long enough that in a credential driven world my best, possibly only, opportunity for a different job is to get one just like this one that maybe pays a little better. I have sold exactly seven stories over the last ten years, which means I am in a sort of professional limbo where no one knows who I am, but I am not a new writer (in the world of SF short stories, this doesn't really matter--write more good stories, get more stories published, and then, one hopes, people know--but it's where I am at the moment). I am too anxious, too easily stressed, too indecisive and I procrastinate too much. I am tired of being invisible.
And although it is cloudy and gloomy and sort of, but not quite, raining, I am going to take my dog for a walk and reflect on the fact that I am here, that many of the things that vex me are in my control, and that tomorrow really is another day.