This week, I worked my normal five days, a great relief after a week of just a few days--one form of the freelancer's nightmare. For a freelancer, a stretch of days at the same place, whether those days are calm or crazy, long or short, makes the freelancing thing seem manageable. It offers some degree of security in a life that basically has none.
The freelance life is one that requires wearing many different hats, but a bunch of different heads as well. Sometimes, you need to be the rational one, keeping track of the hours and the paychecks, and making sure that babysitter coverage aligns with actual working hours. Other times, it is much more important to be the passionate, creative person in a letter, or an interview, or a demo reel. And knowing when to shift from one head to the other--and when somehow to manage wearing both--may be the biggest challenge of all. So, on the days and weeks when "freelancer" can simply mean "working person," there is some sense of relief. A temporary managing of just one head (even if that head still has to wear a few hats).
Not every week will be a five-day one. After years of freelancing, I am, little by little, getting used to that. But in both the one head and the many head moments, I remind myself that it is all, in one way or another, part of being "not washed up yet."
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