My Freelance Journey: Kind of a Downer

I have been trying to tune my mandolin as a way of procrastinating from writing today's blog post about freelancing. The tuning is not going very well, but for a while it was working as a way to put off writing. 

I've got to be honest, you guys. Writing about myself as a freelancer today seems really daunting. I've been feeling so ashamed of my career (or lack thereof) the past few days that the prospect of writing about it seems terrible. 

Last week, as an attempt to cheer myself up I wrote about some things I am proud of so far. But this week I just feel like nothing I do is enough and that post was just me blowing hot air, when in reality I am the world's worst freelance artist. 

I feel like I don't deserve the lifestyle I have in which my husband pays all the bills and I get to play pretend at being an artist, which for me involves a lot of Instagramming and drinking coffee at my favorite café.

I feel like a fraud who has no business writing a blog about freelancing.

This week I felt a little better about my lack of a "real" job, because I started doing food delivery service using one of those apps. It made me feel a little less crappy about myself to make a little money. 

But I still feel pretty down. We have been talking a lot in therapy about "taking up space". Lately I feel like I have been sprawling all over the place and taking up so much space--space which I feel I don't deserve. 

I don't deserve to live off of Sheldon' income. I don't deserve to be struggling with mental health for as long as I've been struggling. I don't deserve to not be making much money when I know I could be making more if I had a "normal" job. I don't deserve to call myself a freelance artist, because there are so many people out there who working harder and doing this better. 

I don't even feel like I deserve to take up this much space on the internet writing about my emotional struggles. 

I actually am pretty happy that this week in addition to starting food delivery I also made significant headway on my next zine for the zine club. But it was only during the moments when I was in the groove of scanning, writing and editing pages of the zine I was able to banish the feelings of inadequacy.

But I don't want to live a life in which I only feel like a person of value when I am making something. I want to be at peace with my own existence and the amount of space I take up regardless of whether I am productive, because I believe humans are worthy of love either way. 

Thanks for being a listening ear for me today. It means a lot.

Lucy🌹