Occupational Fatigue
2am. She had too much wine and is having trouble sleeping. She looks at the screen on her iPhone and thinks, "there must be some mistake": only six emails over the last fifteen hours--all of little significance: her Spam report, her American Airlines mileage statement, an out of office automatic reply, and a notification from Twitter about how to boost business. Business? What business? Other than the email from her friend Cindy, with possible dates for dinner next week (and she certainly looks forward to that) there's nothing of importance or urgency.
What day was it yesterday?—she asks herself, still a little blurry from all the wine—because if it had been a Saturday or a holiday she would understand the slow traffic. Squinting in the dark she focuses in on that detail. It was a Wednesday. Right-smack-dab in the middle of the week—the busiest day for communication and social media. Maybe Wifi was re-establishing a lost connection. She taps refresh to make sure there’s really no new mail. Is her iPhone certain? “Updated just now" are the words that reappear at the bottom of the screen. Insult after insult to injury.
She remembers when people used to ask her what she did for a living and she'd reply (with pride and perky conviction), "I'm a songwriter." It was true. She wrote songs every day. Always excited to pop out of bed and write another. She earned a nice living. And from her handful of successes she still does. She knows she's lucky. It's just that the business has changed so much she hardly recognizes it and lately she feels the answer to that inquiry (what do you do for a living?) is a bit disingenuous. Deplete of passion. As if it were not entirely so. As if that life were in the past...a memory of something she used to do. Used to be. Used to love. And thus, the book she wrote in order to explain.
The Grammys are coming up. The community appears to be fired up and ready to celebrate the best of the least disposable hits—and a few great songs. The fortunate songwriters who hit it out of the park last year are telling you all about it on Facebook—using words like “honored" and “stoked” in their posts and hoping we are forgiving enough to excuse the humble brag. We are. We would do the same if we got a nomination.
She wishes there would have been Facebook the year she was nominated so she would have had a platform to shamelessly self promote herself as well. She had her moment. One more blessing to be grateful for. But moments are waning. She knows that tomorrow will be another day and that this occupational fatigue is mostly due to how much she had to drink. Because true to form, last week the iPhone was ringing off the hook and she couldn’t respond to emails fast enough.
Perspective.
She does love writing songs. It’s her fresh air. Her B-12. She can’t imagine a day that she’ll wake up and not have a song on her mind—lightening in her pocket—a list of ‘starts’ in her Evernote App.
She takes a big swig of water and two Advil and turns the pillow to the cool side for another go at sleep. Things are always better in the morning. She knows this so well. Still, before she rolls over she checks for new mail one more time.
Thanks for reading, my friends.