For more than a decade, I have been stymied whenever I am asked if I am employed, or what I do for a living.
No, I don’t have an employer. I haven’t had one since 1986, when I left the employ of the American Hospital Association and started a software/technology consulting firm for the meeting and tradeshow industry. I labored in that industry for the next twenty years or so … but then I stopped. These days I manage some real estate that my husband and I own, including a commercial building with retail and apartments, and a guest house, and I work to maintain our 46-acre forested home site, which believe me, I would consider work. I don’t draw a salary, so I don’t exactly get paid, but we do make money – not a great deal but more than enough.
On the side, I write and do theatre (act, direct, produce, design …) I don’t seem to have had difficulty finding things to keep me busy (sometimes too busy) since I closed my software company. And yet …
Lately I have had a few days when I didn’t have anything to do. I admit that’s a little scary. I’ve always had things that needed doing, and other things lined up behind them – so to find myself with a day (or five) lined up with nothing on the schedule has been alarming.
Is this temporary? Not sure. Will I find ways to be okay with a life without immediate purpose? Again, not sure.
Stay tuned.
No, I don’t have an employer. I haven’t had one since 1986, when I left the employ of the American Hospital Association and started a software/technology consulting firm for the meeting and tradeshow industry. I labored in that industry for the next twenty years or so … but then I stopped. These days I manage some real estate that my husband and I own, including a commercial building with retail and apartments, and a guest house, and I work to maintain our 46-acre forested home site, which believe me, I would consider work. I don’t draw a salary, so I don’t exactly get paid, but we do make money – not a great deal but more than enough.
On the side, I write and do theatre (act, direct, produce, design …) I don’t seem to have had difficulty finding things to keep me busy (sometimes too busy) since I closed my software company. And yet …
Lately I have had a few days when I didn’t have anything to do. I admit that’s a little scary. I’ve always had things that needed doing, and other things lined up behind them – so to find myself with a day (or five) lined up with nothing on the schedule has been alarming.
Is this temporary? Not sure. Will I find ways to be okay with a life without immediate purpose? Again, not sure.
Stay tuned.
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