It’s kind of good. I was just laying in bed, cuddled with my wealth of pillows and comforters and thinking on what my next moves were going to be. Two books had arrived from the printer (of course there are minor corrections, but that’s to be expected.)
Rewind.
I was on the #5 bus headed up Broadway to the post office to pick up this box of books. And since it was just a short jaunt of a few blocks, I had my phablet and was listening to music but hadn’t brought along a book. So I was thinking.
I was thinking about a past relationship and as I am inclined to do—-getting a little steamed about the thought, person, argument. Replaying it in my head and looking at it from a new angle—-which was spurred by a spontaneous dinner with a colleague a few weeks ago and she’d asked me about my dating life, as we’d talked about hers. I laughingly told her a comment a guy had made, judgmental but complimentary, yet it had taken me a couple of years past the relationship, to realize he meant that he was intimidated by me. It didn’t help that my bus ride, weeks later, was to pick up a book that had included bits and pieces of that relationship, fictionalized.
This is why said gumball was rolling around at the back of my mind. I get to the post office——frightened there will be a long line in the middle of the afternoon—-no line! I wait maybe 30 seconds and hand my slip to the attendant and a minute later have this huge box in my tote bag. I open it in the park across the street and the books are brand new and sexy and pretty and heavy and smell good and when I page flip, the text is crisp and visible.
I start smiling and beaming, overjoyed.
I realized, running mentally through past classmates and friends and folk who wanted to be writers that I’m standing here with more of my books, adding to the passel selling around the world. I’m not just blooming with gratitude and joy, I’m grateful that I’m not living the tortured life of some other folk.
I made a decision over 10 years ago to step out of the matrix known as Corporate America——having done financial work, securities litigation work, a host of things, a strong resume——for education and then used my time to control my schedule and to simply write.
Write, I do.
When I was young, scoring 6,7,8 grades ahead of my own peers on Standardized tests and imagining what I might be interested in, I was writing. I never took my writing “business” seriously so after undergrad I went into companies because they were “serious business”. You get to go up in the elevator and you have a desk—-that one!—-and it’s yours and you decorate it. Eventually I didn’t decorate as much because I was consulting so there were time limits on how long I would be there. I made it a point to not get comfortable. To not make that part of my identity. For about 10 years or so I didn’t know what the alternative to that corporate identity was….because I liked business, liked the intricacy of it, had owned several businesses as a child/teenager.
I even had friends/schoolmates who sailed into CA, never to be heard from again…..until I saw FB pics or them on the street—-fatter, a lot less hair. I realized they had a desk and probably decorated it, perhaps even the Holy Grail——an office—-a room, a little room in a bigger office, that is yours, but not really yours.
But I get to—-write even this blog post—-write a novel most of my working time, my work now taking up about 5 hours of active working. The other 35 is my writing Kyle stuff. I’ve been offered several promotions, could get all ambitious and hungry, and play dirty games……but I can literally feel the days, the hours, when I write less at work. When work takes up too much of my attention away from my Life’s Purpose.
I’m living and creating my Life’s Purpose. Yes, I know when I die, but I often think about what happens if I die this year? To the books? The TV show? I then think in production plans and product plans, I have to make an Exit Strategy plan for me, in case of death.
I used to think my giftedness meant I could do anything, that I could simply focus and learn and master anything—-which I sort of can. Which for awhile provided a whole range of possibilities.
Then I found this one, good thing to do well, very well, and it all clicked.
I’m walking down Amsterdam, swinging my tote bag full of books I’ve written, good books, and I’m beaming like the sun. I start to think of the ex and friends, near and far, and how they’re going to that desk, maybe in an office, inside of a bigger office, and how I’ve made the conscious choice not to.
It’s not what I expected, but I am happier with myself, little ol’ me.
#KylePhoenix
#TheKylePhoenixShow
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