I have a day job.

I have a day job. It’s not what I want to be doing with the rest of my life but I do like to be able to pay bills and buy food. So this is the joy I try and find in the work. I get up and walk with all the other workers to a place where I make a contribution that is reasonably valued. I participate. Nice, normal people wish me a good morning and if it’s a Monday they will ask me how my weekend was. I wear tan pants and a shirt with a collar. I have a security card on a lanyard just like a real grown-up.

I have moments of mild panic. I realize that I’m cleanly shaved, freshly showered and productive at eight-thirty in the morning and I question the life choices that lead me to this point. And I fear discovery. I’m waiting for Insecurity to show up and ask me to leave as they’ve found out that I published a novel that got made into a film and seriously what was I doing here with the nice normal people? These people have families! It was that third chocolate biscuit I had at the farewell morning tea for Sharon that gave me away. That black t-shirt that one time.

To get this job I had to pee into a cup. No this wasn’t the sum total of the interview process though I can imagine a job interview where one has to answer questions like “Where do you see yourself in five years time?” while desperately wishing you needed to go and hoping you wouldn’t miss. Once, in a job interview, they asked me what my weaknesses were I said “Kittens and hokey-pokey ice cream.” When they didn’t laughed I added: “Not at the same time, of course.” I didn’t get the job.

On sunny days I walk to work along the waterfront. The warm light glinting on the cool water fills me with a sense of purpose, like there is a grand design and I’m somehow fulfilling one small part of it. And I’m right. It’s called paying the damn rent so that I have a place to live and to write and to hopefully create something beyond what I’m doing now. This gets me out of bed each morning and keeps me participating despite my growing panic. There is fury building, an energy that drives me. There is also coffee.