Looking Toward the Future

Hey look! A blog post that isn’t a book review! I know, it’s amazing, isn’t it? It’s been a very interesting journey lately in the life of Rion. As you may have seen, I haven’t exactly been living up to what I’d wanted to. I haven’t finished the prompts I promised for my September call. (I do intend to, I promise.) I haven’t written as many blog posts that aren’t reviews as I would have liked. I haven’t been reading as much as I wanted. But here’s some answers as to why.

I got a job in September. (Yay!) This is a good thing! The bad thing is that I’m not getting as many hours as I need, and I’m still struggling to make ends meet. If paychecks go as they are now, I’ll have enough to pay my rent–and nothing else. This is, needless to say, worrisome. I’m hoping to ask for more hours in the coming weeks, but we’ll see what happens. In the long run, I’m happy to have the job at all. I like the restaurant, I like the people, I like the work. But I need to be able to pay my bills until I can end my lease and move back with my parents. (As much as I’m not thrilled about that, no matter how much I love my parents. But until I can have a job(s) that pay my own way…I’m having loan payments due soon. This is a problem.) I’ll be looking for other work to do to earn money, maybe more audiobooks etc, and hope that I can last.

In addition to all of this, my MFA course is coming to an end. In December, as long as everything goes according to plan, I’ll defend my thesis in Pittsburgh and earn my degree. It’s a very strange feeling, after all this time, to finally see the end. It’s nerve-wracking, though. I have to present to a committee and prove that I know my book and how it fits into the literary world, and then give a public reading. The reading doesn’t worry me that much; I like public reading. And while I know my book inside and out, I’m still nervous about the defense itself. We’ll see how it goes.

But between the work tiring me out (since I’m not used to standing up for hours on end) and stress about everything else in life (and the fact that my work is closer to my parents than me and so I’m staying with them a lot more) I haven’t been writing or reading. I haven’t been as creative as I wanted. And that bums me out. I’m hoping that as time goes on, I’ll get more used to this–I’ll find a pattern, I’ll build a rhythm, something. But for now, I’m just exhausted.

Worked my first 8 hour day today. Legs are killing me. I think I’m going to go lie down in bed, noodle on my phone, and go to sleep.

I’ll check in with y’all again soon.