Temptation

vintage shot from the attic days of 2004

This is either. Hmmm. This is either to one specific person or to the public in general.

This is a missive. Or it is a sign in the middle of an aisle in a drug store that says "Cuidado!" telling you about how they just mopped the floor there and you should be careful or they will catch a lawsuit.

Okay so I am stumbling. Okay so that metaphor was janky.

Too late to make sense.

Too early for me to feel tired.

Instead of 3 AM awakenings I've had 3 AM sleepenings, for the last few weeks. I'm in here in my cherry liqueur filled chocolate candy of a massive bed laying like a pharaoh. Arms across my chest. Calm. Counting camels.

And nothing. Nothing even slightly resembling sleep until I've done a few rituals. The g-rated version says I check my personal email, check my work email, play angry birds, recite Buddha's words, read 2 chapters of Zora Neale Hurston and then just as I'm about to reach some grand new understanding of the world and how I might just fit into it? My eyelids get heavy.

I surround myself with massive down pillows and sleep. I dream of more pharaohs, and what it feels like to be The Chosen One.

I wake up at 6:44 exactly every morning, as well.

And my first thought is that it's a grand time to get out of bed, hit the Bay Club, hamster wheel on the elliptical for 45 minutes and then steam room it for 15 or 20 before showering and heading to work.

But my dream life. It's just so much richer.

So I say to myself that going back to sleep is both easy and great for my spirit.

What follows next is too mundane to go into.

But yes. This is me checking off one of my occasional rituals and issuing a warning.

You see. Well. I'm envious (now - before you read another word of this please be sure to compare the definitions of "envy" and "jealousy" before you go a step further. i chose one on purpose. represent.) of people who are financially comfortable.

And not just in the way that I am. Like. Bills paid, parking citations payable, batteries changeable. All that. Mind you, I am grateful for those things but what inspires envy is a level higher. It's the only thing I am missing.

It's waking up and doing whatever the fuck I want to do with my day every day of the week. It's sleeping until noon but knowing I have until 3AM to finish whatever it is I am working on. It's non-regimented days that play out like a Choose Your Own Adventure storybook. It's the time and resources to make my own art on my own time. Sew superhero costumes. Make feather headdresses. Wear them all to places for no reason.

Yes. That's it. It's The Freedom I envy.

So hearing/watching/reading stories about the freedom and proprietorship of other people that I don't really know and am not invested in just makes me more restless. More envious. More anxious.

It makes me want to take one or two more jobs until I'm assured baller status in five years or so.

But I don't have quite enough hustle. I should be a CEO by now, going by my calendar.

I should be typing this to you from a yacht.

But I'm not.

And while that is okay, being reminded of that fact only makes me more wishful and prone to silly decisions that never pay off in the long run.

We got what we got right now. That's all there is to it.

All is how it is supposed to be. Always. In all ways.

And on that note I'll bid you bonsoir and hope that sleep finds me sooner than later tonight. I have a lot to conquer tomorrow.

Love,
Angelina