While I wrote a book about So What (launching June 4th), I am also slightly obsessed with the why of everything. Why do people think differently? Why do we itch, like how does the brain even do that? Why do birds suddenly appear every time you are near? The WHY.
People ask me why I freelance instead of getting a full-time job. It is not usually judgment, but rather confusion. But the answer is not simple. It is layered. To explain it, I have to go back a bit, because my life now is my So What. All of it. The good, the bad, and the messy parts I lived through.
This is not about blaming anyone, not even myself. I have landed in a place of radical acceptance, and I find joy almost every day. It was not always like that.
In 2004 I worked in government and had no idea what I was doing. I made it up as I went along. Some things I was great at, like connecting people and making things happen, but writing briefing notes on things I did not care about was not one of them.
We moved to Ottawa in 2007, and four months later, we adopted three children. That is where things shifted, not because of the adoption, because I love my kids, but because we had almost no support for very real needs we later discovered were known by the Children’s Aid Society. Over the first two years of parenting, I had to stop travelling, and my mental health took a hit in ways I did not know were possible. We were in survival mode for years, and while comedy became my outlet and my husband held steady, it was heavy.
With no travel, at work I was moved into corporate reporting, which for a creative person doing only data work was never going to be a fit. From about 2011 to 2013, I was not well, and I went to work and cried more often than I would like to admit. Eventually, I left to better support my family, and our life became a cycle of professionals including social workers, doctors, teachers, and police. It was exhausting.
I tried nonprofit work next and had two very different experiences, neither of which were a fit for me. Funding eventually disappeared after I questioned ethics, which is one of those things that happens more often than people admit. Around that same time, I had just finished therapy, published my first terrible book, had gastric bypass surgery, and then lost my job, so something had to change.
We started a courier business, and I was also invited to attend a program at the Coady Institute, which shifted how I see the world. The business had highs and lows, but ultimately ended in bankruptcy and we lost our house. COVID made everything harder, and I found myself working 100 hour weeks, getting burned by people I trusted, and learning the hard way that being great with people does not mean you are great at profit.
After that, life shifted again. One adults child was left at home, I had no clear path forward, but people kept offering me small projects. Somewhere in there, I also wrote a syndicated column for CBC Radio, which I tend to gloss over like it is nothing, even though it was a big deal at the time.
That is when freelance life really began. Every day is different, and every step forward seems to come with something that knocks me sideways. At 51, I could give you many different theories as to why, but sometimes it is easier to just explain what a normal week looks like.
We currently have one of my children, her partner, and their two kids living with us, so life is full. Between meetings, an emergency visit to CHEO with my granddaughter, late nights working, and then my car breaking down on Old Richmond Road in the pitch dark with no lights, no reception, and cars flying by, I found myself alone, crying in a bush, genuinely thinking this might be how it ends. PITCH dark and cars zooming by at 120 -140 km per hour. Eventually the police arrived, followed by a tow truck that had the wrong equipment, which led to the car being impounded, CAA not being able to help, and an extra 400 dollars and a full day of coordinating with friends to sort it out. I take a pause to rejoice in having so many amazing people in my life.
All of that happened on about four hours of sleep, and I still showed up to my meetings. What people do not understand is that the last 30 years were tiring and when things happen, which is much more often than I care to admit, it hits me harder.
So when people ask why I do not work a normal job, the answer is that I cannot, at least not right now. I cannot reliably commit to being somewhere all the time, and while I do not take public money, with no shade to anyone who does, I am in a situation where I can work, just not the way society traditionally says we have to. Instead, I hustle, and I freelance. I balance creative work with paid work, and I have come to realize that I am not alone in this. Many people are living layered, complicated lives, and we are tired. Sometimes you need multiple streams to make things work, and sometimes you are simply not reliable for one thing, and that is okay.
I do not feel bad about it, I feel clear. This year I started saying no, which was hard because freelancing teaches you to say yes to everything, but that mindset led me into work I was not good at, or not as good as I am at other things and ultimately, hindered me. That is my ingrained personality. So now, I focus on two paid gigs, my creative work with So What, and building toward speaking and writing full time. It may not look like traditional work, but everything I do connects, and the writing, the sales, and the storytelling all feed into the same purpose.
One thing is clear though, I tend to take on a lot of social issues and projects and look for the thread that connects them. I like the synergy of it all, even when it looks messy from the outside, and this book is part of that. It is not about telling people to be better or even to do better, but about helping people understand how and why we see the world the way we do, and how we might choose to do things a little differently once we see it that benefits not just you but society as a whole. That is my life in a nutshell, and that is a book I am excited to share!
The question is not really why I do not work one job, it is why we think we all should. We are burning ourselves out so others can be rich, and for me, if I am not passionate about something, I simply cannot do it well. That is my why, and I invite you to think about yours, but in the end, So What. The book is coming June 4th, and I am putting my energy into that, into my work, and into my life. You do not have to understand it, you can just say that looks like fun and maybe we go do some good together. See you June 4th?
