No Share

I have three dogs, two cats and one chicken at three houses. Two of these "jobs" are favors. I'm doing them because they need doing. I want to be helpful. My desire to be helpful is a shattering, scattering force. Where is my life? I tell myself I am still in recovery from summer, but then there's no room in this life for recovery, so I'm just holding on or coasting or floating out to sea. Everyday a bit of money, which isn't bad, but then a curbed sense of freedom and a fence between me and my artist. These jobs, all of them at once, require that I borrow a car. I feel alive when I'm walking and the car is the death of me.

Inside all of this, I have one job that is my dream, Mona and Maddie! I've been caring for these two maltipoos (Maltese + poodle) for 3 years now and they have my heartstrings. I'd take them in a heartbeat, anywhere, anytime. Get an apartment. Get a job. Move to the country. You name it. I should say no to all the other friends and just work for them. That would be true happiness. But, as is, coming and going from their house leaves me, or used to leave me, the freedom to write and hike and make art and be social. And they paid my meager bills. And their costs were covered.

Now I am just over committed and caring for too many houses and animals for it to be useful. It is unsettling because these jobs are at the most 20 days long and at the least 1 or 2 days long, which means I am always moving, but this moving has been urging me, more and more, to divest myself of things. Where I used to be Spartan, now I am mobile, or near mobile. I still have some unfinished projects in a bag and a hard-drive and a laptop. What does a pilgrim do with such things?

Did I eat today? What? With whom? It must have been at work again. I'm sure I missed another meal or two. I cannot say.