That embroidery is gorgeous, Rita. Funnily enough (actually, it's not at all funny; I am kind of sort of steaming) I've just come from reading another post on another substack, in which the author talks about needlework in an unnecessarily less-than-charitable way. I started crafting a what-the-heck comment to her and then—thank goodness—your notification popped onto my screen, knocking me back to my senses. (I hit "cancel" and came here because life is too short to argue with people online!)
You already know I'm all about going small. But even though this is how I've lived for many years, I do still find it hard at times to get past societal expectations. This fall I got a part-time job at a store that is doing work I passionately believe in. I have wonderful co-workers and have fun while I'm there, I feel like I'm making a difference, and I'm earning a bit of money to supplement our household income—and yet I haven't been able to tell my MIL about it. She will, I know, think the job is "beneath" me, making it a conversation I simply cannot bear to have. I think there are some people in this world who do not—and never will—understand going or staying small.
Oh, Marian--we ARE kindred spirits. I can't tell you how many times I've started and abandoned similar comments online. Life IS too short to argue with people there! It rarely changes anyone's thinking and it steals time we could spend on more productive things. Like needlework!
You have been one of my role models for going small. I have, for years, envied many aspects of your life. And even so, I've found it hard for me to really do it, and I think part of it is for the reasons you share here about societal expectations. Your observations about your work have me making notes for a future post; for now, I'll just say: I've felt it and I get it. I see a thread between your first and second paragraph that has to do with what we communicate to who and why we do it. Maybe telling your MIL about your job has something in common with writing a what-the-heck comment to someone who just doesn't see or understand things the way you do? Maybe you don't need to tell her?
I'm so glad you've found something that is so fulfilling for you! Cheering you on and celebrating your happiness with it!
I love how you responded to Grace with "Aren't we lucky?" Yes. 🖤(I also laughed at the analogy "riding a horse with two butts.")
It can be difficult for me to be a human and explain my existence without mentioning how I make a living. Or how do I spend my days? I am grateful to Mike's job for allowing me to write without pay. But I occasionally get the "what do you do for a living?" and it annoys me.
Your home is cheerful, colorful, and full of love. I hope to see it for myself someday. (I love the stickers on the laptop. It reminds me on my own.)
I have to say that I love this space much more than your other platform. Your post is delivered directly to my email, where I can "like" it and see your response, making it feel much more engaging. I hope you're loving it as well. 😘❤️
I would love to have you here! If you ever make it out here, we must sit at that table and talk and laugh for hours. And eat pie. (I hope you like pie?) And go shopping for laptop stickers.
I have so many thoughts about the "what do you do?" question. And about feeling like I have to justify my existence now that I no longer do (much) work for pay. And what that all means. I'm only starting to begin to unravel it. I'm glad I have those further along in that (like you) to help and give me perspective.
And thank you for the feedback on the new platform. I hoped it would be easier for readers. It's sure easier for me as a writer/creator! I'm so glad I made the move.
I wonder if anyone is as self-aware as you. I enjoy your way of processing your past and understanding how it brought you to now. I like the concept of going small and have done the same thing with my ambitions, letting myself be me without the big life goals I thought I was supposed to want. I'm happier this way and more effective. A paradox.
A paradox, for sure! In an earlier draft I had a line about how the smaller I get, the more my life expands. I think it's probably just that there's more room for the good stuff. A different form of minimalism, maybe?
As for self-awareness, well...there's a fine line, I know, between self-awareness and self-absorption. I try to walk it. And if I am self-aware now, it's only because I learned through very hard experience the perils of not being aware of who I am and what I'm doing. Gah. So glad to be right where I am, even if some parts of getting older are a little tough.
(I should add that I do very much feel myself in a similar psychic space as you, probably in part because we're the same age and occupy the same broken world. The Daoist philosopher Zhuangzi, with his scorn for conventional thinking about purpose and productivity, has been a huge influence on me ever since I was a teen, so I haven't struggled as much with that feeling of needing to make a name for myself or whatever, but OTOH what inclination toward busyness I do have has proven very resilient indeed. I'm not sure I'd be able to follow the kind of doctor's orders you wrote about in the last post.
Business and ambition are definitely two separate things, at least for me. I have always been busy and never bored, which is why I panicked when I was told to do nothing for two weeks. Would love to claim some kind of wisdom in following that doctor's orders, but my motivator was fear. I'd recently read the children's writer Kelly Barnhill's essay about her experiences with concussion, and it scared the hell out of me. Being still started to bring gifts almost immediately, so that made it easier to do, but there were definitely moments of struggle. Now I'm off to learn more about Zhuangzi...thanks. Glad to see you here, too. I sure like Substack better than WP.
I'm such a snob about web standards and such, I would not be a fan if Substack didn't have working feeds - that's a sine qua non for any online publishing platform IMO.
The problem with this approach however is that I quite like the Notes feature, so I might have to in fact follow everyone I follow so we can communicate via Notes
Thanks! I know you are ahead of me on this path. Watching you walk yours has helped me more than I've said. And I really like that picture, too. Garden happiness just shows, doesn't it?
Rita, I'm just enough older than you to be a tail-end Baby Boomer rather than a Gen-Xer. But from what I can tell, we share many other traits in common. Welcome to Substack, and thank you for nudging us all toward smaller, simpler, more meaning-full lives.
Well, I was born in December of 1964, so technically I am a Boomer, by 2 weeks. But culturally I feel much more Gen-X, and my husband is a few years younger than me, so I claim that identity. Thank you for the welcome--I love all the writing/writers I'm discovering here.
Oh, I'm not really sure. I was once married to a man born in the heart of the boom, and I could always feel our generational differences. For me, being X is about having a certain kind of attitude born of what was happening societally in our formative years. I was just a kid when big boomer events happened--Vietnam, Watergate. They hit, but differently. I hated being a latchkey kid after starting life with a mom who was home. Felt like everyone's parents got divorced. Felt like benign neglect was the adult default setting, which made us vulnerable to various things. (Claire Dederer writes pretty brilliantly about this; she is my age and grew up in the same town). Then there are different cultural touchpoints (music, movies, etc) My boomer husband didn't even know about mine, much less get them. But, even though I've written a mini-post here, I know that we are all shaped by many things, and different people born in the same era can be wildly different from each other. To go back to attitude: a little cynical, a little hard, a little scrappy. Sometimes a little defeated.
Interesting, Rita. Love that you are able to articulate those differences! I have two siblings, one 10 years my senior (a solid Boomer), so my parents were about a decade older than most of my friends'. And, I resented that their felt more controlling. Definitely not benign neglect. What a lesson in perspective it is to look back on all that! I'm tracking on the attitude aspects for sure, especially the scrappy bit. Though I have always had a heart-driven leaning toward optimism -- Pollyanna-ish, perhaps, so I'm glad it's tempered by the former.
My dad was very strict, so I can definitely relate to that. But also (by today's standards for sure) I felt very much on my own in some important ways. I've had a leaning (so far I've sometimes fallen over) toward idealism. I'm for-sure on the cusp of both. Maybe you are, too? Maybe you are Generation Jones?
Perhaps. I'm not sure I've ever thought about it as much as I have in this conversation! 😅 A Wiki article on Gen Jones suggests that the optimism of the group's childhood gave way to "...pessimism, distrust of government, and general cynicism." If I'm jonesing, I held onto the brightness a bit longer than some. 🤷♀️
Such a great essay, Rita! I have worked for some time as a freelance writer after years of blogging just for fun and I remember the pressure and lack of creative energy that it brought to me. One of the reasons I love my office job is that it allows to keep my own creative aside for myself, without feeling the need to monetize it in order to gain more money.
I know just what you mean! Right out of college, I took a job as an editorial assistant with an educational publisher, which quickly turned into an editing job. I spent all day working with other peoples' words, and had nothing left for my own. That was a big part of why I left publishing and became a teacher. Later, I did get a regular, paid writing gig--and that's when I learned that writing for money, even my own work, wasn't necessarily what I wanted, either. That's when I really let go of the idea of making a living from writing. I'm so glad you've found something that works for you. I know the right answer to questions about how to support both our lives and our creative needs/desires can be wildly different for each of us.
Hi Rita I enjoyed reading your story - my house is equally filled with creative projects in all forms - my daughter's art desk is a sight to be seen! I also never achieved fame or great success thus far with my work, never made a big splash on instagram, and never cared either. Certain ships can sail right by and I don't mind but that doesn't mean I don't want my work to resonate and connect with others who may very well be looking for it.
It's nice to be here on Substack where there are so many curious, interested and inquisitive people to pull me into their orbit and who knows, they may also fall into mine in return. There's a great peace with as you said, shedding that striving stress - whenever I go down that road I bristle and turn in the other direction.
This really resonates for me: "Certain ships can sail right by and I don't mind but that doesn't mean I don't want my work to resonate and connect with others who may very well be looking for it." When I've had brushes with chances to be bigger, I've usually felt discomfort. At the same time, creating in a vacuum feels pretty meaningless. It's hard to find the sweet spot, but like you I'm having some success with that on Substack. So glad our paths have crossed here!
Oh, Rita, my eyes are smarting with tears, this: "It can mean that we don’t have to find or live out a great purpose. We can simply live our small lives the best we can alongside other, similar beings." You know I wrote my post "What Do We Do With Our Ambition?" and so I have been wrestling with all these things for so long. I am torn, still. I believe, still, that I never got my "last good chance" at an amazing job where I could do the amazing things I do (which, turns out, is really about optimizing product messaging and team operations, which sounds very unglamorous, but I thrill to both). If I had any money at all, I would try to figure out my faux-retirement pivot, i.e. what kind of easy part-time work could I do to sustain myself, my family (my now very-large family by remarriage), and the answer is.... not enough money there. Cant' do that yet. Anyway, glad to see you, hear you, read you, and mostly, selfishly glad to have you in my life, our yearnings and searchings have always been so deeply similar. Thank you for keeping me from being lonely. <3
You know, I think it might all work itself out. I'm guessing that going quiet has been about healing. Growing in new ways. Maybe this feeling of wanting that last good chance is you coming to a place where you're ready for it. Maybe you're still in the process of figuring out more concretely what it would be. (I've ended all these sentences with periods, but question marks would probably be more appropriate.)
Oo, nice to meet you. I was also an English teacher, and a curriculum maker, then cut down by illness and finally retired at 57. Also crafty and like the fact I no longer try to monetise my crafts.
That embroidery is gorgeous, Rita. Funnily enough (actually, it's not at all funny; I am kind of sort of steaming) I've just come from reading another post on another substack, in which the author talks about needlework in an unnecessarily less-than-charitable way. I started crafting a what-the-heck comment to her and then—thank goodness—your notification popped onto my screen, knocking me back to my senses. (I hit "cancel" and came here because life is too short to argue with people online!)
You already know I'm all about going small. But even though this is how I've lived for many years, I do still find it hard at times to get past societal expectations. This fall I got a part-time job at a store that is doing work I passionately believe in. I have wonderful co-workers and have fun while I'm there, I feel like I'm making a difference, and I'm earning a bit of money to supplement our household income—and yet I haven't been able to tell my MIL about it. She will, I know, think the job is "beneath" me, making it a conversation I simply cannot bear to have. I think there are some people in this world who do not—and never will—understand going or staying small.
Oh, Marian--we ARE kindred spirits. I can't tell you how many times I've started and abandoned similar comments online. Life IS too short to argue with people there! It rarely changes anyone's thinking and it steals time we could spend on more productive things. Like needlework!
You have been one of my role models for going small. I have, for years, envied many aspects of your life. And even so, I've found it hard for me to really do it, and I think part of it is for the reasons you share here about societal expectations. Your observations about your work have me making notes for a future post; for now, I'll just say: I've felt it and I get it. I see a thread between your first and second paragraph that has to do with what we communicate to who and why we do it. Maybe telling your MIL about your job has something in common with writing a what-the-heck comment to someone who just doesn't see or understand things the way you do? Maybe you don't need to tell her?
I'm so glad you've found something that is so fulfilling for you! Cheering you on and celebrating your happiness with it!
I love how you responded to Grace with "Aren't we lucky?" Yes. 🖤(I also laughed at the analogy "riding a horse with two butts.")
It can be difficult for me to be a human and explain my existence without mentioning how I make a living. Or how do I spend my days? I am grateful to Mike's job for allowing me to write without pay. But I occasionally get the "what do you do for a living?" and it annoys me.
Your home is cheerful, colorful, and full of love. I hope to see it for myself someday. (I love the stickers on the laptop. It reminds me on my own.)
I have to say that I love this space much more than your other platform. Your post is delivered directly to my email, where I can "like" it and see your response, making it feel much more engaging. I hope you're loving it as well. 😘❤️
I would love to have you here! If you ever make it out here, we must sit at that table and talk and laugh for hours. And eat pie. (I hope you like pie?) And go shopping for laptop stickers.
I have so many thoughts about the "what do you do?" question. And about feeling like I have to justify my existence now that I no longer do (much) work for pay. And what that all means. I'm only starting to begin to unravel it. I'm glad I have those further along in that (like you) to help and give me perspective.
And thank you for the feedback on the new platform. I hoped it would be easier for readers. It's sure easier for me as a writer/creator! I'm so glad I made the move.
I love pie. And I love shopping for laptop stickers.
I wonder if anyone is as self-aware as you. I enjoy your way of processing your past and understanding how it brought you to now. I like the concept of going small and have done the same thing with my ambitions, letting myself be me without the big life goals I thought I was supposed to want. I'm happier this way and more effective. A paradox.
A paradox, for sure! In an earlier draft I had a line about how the smaller I get, the more my life expands. I think it's probably just that there's more room for the good stuff. A different form of minimalism, maybe?
As for self-awareness, well...there's a fine line, I know, between self-awareness and self-absorption. I try to walk it. And if I am self-aware now, it's only because I learned through very hard experience the perils of not being aware of who I am and what I'm doing. Gah. So glad to be right where I am, even if some parts of getting older are a little tough.
Subscribing via RSS (because my inbox is soooo full). Great to see you here!
(I should add that I do very much feel myself in a similar psychic space as you, probably in part because we're the same age and occupy the same broken world. The Daoist philosopher Zhuangzi, with his scorn for conventional thinking about purpose and productivity, has been a huge influence on me ever since I was a teen, so I haven't struggled as much with that feeling of needing to make a name for myself or whatever, but OTOH what inclination toward busyness I do have has proven very resilient indeed. I'm not sure I'd be able to follow the kind of doctor's orders you wrote about in the last post.
Business and ambition are definitely two separate things, at least for me. I have always been busy and never bored, which is why I panicked when I was told to do nothing for two weeks. Would love to claim some kind of wisdom in following that doctor's orders, but my motivator was fear. I'd recently read the children's writer Kelly Barnhill's essay about her experiences with concussion, and it scared the hell out of me. Being still started to bring gifts almost immediately, so that made it easier to do, but there were definitely moments of struggle. Now I'm off to learn more about Zhuangzi...thanks. Glad to see you here, too. I sure like Substack better than WP.
I didn't know you could use RSS to follow Substack accounts. Thanks for mentioning this, Dave. This puts a whole new spin on Substack for me.
I'm such a snob about web standards and such, I would not be a fan if Substack didn't have working feeds - that's a sine qua non for any online publishing platform IMO.
The problem with this approach however is that I quite like the Notes feature, so I might have to in fact follow everyone I follow so we can communicate via Notes
I'm really liking Notes; it's how I'm finding new-to-me writers whose work I appreciate.
AMEN! And I adore that picture of you in your garden.
Thanks! I know you are ahead of me on this path. Watching you walk yours has helped me more than I've said. And I really like that picture, too. Garden happiness just shows, doesn't it?
Rita, I'm just enough older than you to be a tail-end Baby Boomer rather than a Gen-Xer. But from what I can tell, we share many other traits in common. Welcome to Substack, and thank you for nudging us all toward smaller, simpler, more meaning-full lives.
Well, I was born in December of 1964, so technically I am a Boomer, by 2 weeks. But culturally I feel much more Gen-X, and my husband is a few years younger than me, so I claim that identity. Thank you for the welcome--I love all the writing/writers I'm discovering here.
"...by 2 weeks." LOL! I don't know what I feel, culturally. What does Gen X feel like? Or how is it different from Boomers?
Oh, I'm not really sure. I was once married to a man born in the heart of the boom, and I could always feel our generational differences. For me, being X is about having a certain kind of attitude born of what was happening societally in our formative years. I was just a kid when big boomer events happened--Vietnam, Watergate. They hit, but differently. I hated being a latchkey kid after starting life with a mom who was home. Felt like everyone's parents got divorced. Felt like benign neglect was the adult default setting, which made us vulnerable to various things. (Claire Dederer writes pretty brilliantly about this; she is my age and grew up in the same town). Then there are different cultural touchpoints (music, movies, etc) My boomer husband didn't even know about mine, much less get them. But, even though I've written a mini-post here, I know that we are all shaped by many things, and different people born in the same era can be wildly different from each other. To go back to attitude: a little cynical, a little hard, a little scrappy. Sometimes a little defeated.
Interesting, Rita. Love that you are able to articulate those differences! I have two siblings, one 10 years my senior (a solid Boomer), so my parents were about a decade older than most of my friends'. And, I resented that their felt more controlling. Definitely not benign neglect. What a lesson in perspective it is to look back on all that! I'm tracking on the attitude aspects for sure, especially the scrappy bit. Though I have always had a heart-driven leaning toward optimism -- Pollyanna-ish, perhaps, so I'm glad it's tempered by the former.
My dad was very strict, so I can definitely relate to that. But also (by today's standards for sure) I felt very much on my own in some important ways. I've had a leaning (so far I've sometimes fallen over) toward idealism. I'm for-sure on the cusp of both. Maybe you are, too? Maybe you are Generation Jones?
Perhaps. I'm not sure I've ever thought about it as much as I have in this conversation! 😅 A Wiki article on Gen Jones suggests that the optimism of the group's childhood gave way to "...pessimism, distrust of government, and general cynicism." If I'm jonesing, I held onto the brightness a bit longer than some. 🤷♀️
Such a great essay, Rita! I have worked for some time as a freelance writer after years of blogging just for fun and I remember the pressure and lack of creative energy that it brought to me. One of the reasons I love my office job is that it allows to keep my own creative aside for myself, without feeling the need to monetize it in order to gain more money.
I know just what you mean! Right out of college, I took a job as an editorial assistant with an educational publisher, which quickly turned into an editing job. I spent all day working with other peoples' words, and had nothing left for my own. That was a big part of why I left publishing and became a teacher. Later, I did get a regular, paid writing gig--and that's when I learned that writing for money, even my own work, wasn't necessarily what I wanted, either. That's when I really let go of the idea of making a living from writing. I'm so glad you've found something that works for you. I know the right answer to questions about how to support both our lives and our creative needs/desires can be wildly different for each of us.
Yes, exactly! It's so nice to have hobbies that stay just as hobbies and do not feel like chores.
Hi Rita I enjoyed reading your story - my house is equally filled with creative projects in all forms - my daughter's art desk is a sight to be seen! I also never achieved fame or great success thus far with my work, never made a big splash on instagram, and never cared either. Certain ships can sail right by and I don't mind but that doesn't mean I don't want my work to resonate and connect with others who may very well be looking for it.
It's nice to be here on Substack where there are so many curious, interested and inquisitive people to pull me into their orbit and who knows, they may also fall into mine in return. There's a great peace with as you said, shedding that striving stress - whenever I go down that road I bristle and turn in the other direction.
This really resonates for me: "Certain ships can sail right by and I don't mind but that doesn't mean I don't want my work to resonate and connect with others who may very well be looking for it." When I've had brushes with chances to be bigger, I've usually felt discomfort. At the same time, creating in a vacuum feels pretty meaningless. It's hard to find the sweet spot, but like you I'm having some success with that on Substack. So glad our paths have crossed here!
Oh, Rita, my eyes are smarting with tears, this: "It can mean that we don’t have to find or live out a great purpose. We can simply live our small lives the best we can alongside other, similar beings." You know I wrote my post "What Do We Do With Our Ambition?" and so I have been wrestling with all these things for so long. I am torn, still. I believe, still, that I never got my "last good chance" at an amazing job where I could do the amazing things I do (which, turns out, is really about optimizing product messaging and team operations, which sounds very unglamorous, but I thrill to both). If I had any money at all, I would try to figure out my faux-retirement pivot, i.e. what kind of easy part-time work could I do to sustain myself, my family (my now very-large family by remarriage), and the answer is.... not enough money there. Cant' do that yet. Anyway, glad to see you, hear you, read you, and mostly, selfishly glad to have you in my life, our yearnings and searchings have always been so deeply similar. Thank you for keeping me from being lonely. <3
You know, I think it might all work itself out. I'm guessing that going quiet has been about healing. Growing in new ways. Maybe this feeling of wanting that last good chance is you coming to a place where you're ready for it. Maybe you're still in the process of figuring out more concretely what it would be. (I've ended all these sentences with periods, but question marks would probably be more appropriate.)
Oo, nice to meet you. I was also an English teacher, and a curriculum maker, then cut down by illness and finally retired at 57. Also crafty and like the fact I no longer try to monetise my crafts.
We have walked similar paths, for sure. I'm so glad to have met you, too.