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I’m writing this on day 10 in a row of 12 hour shifts, a mix of both days and nights with a double thrown in. This has been a pattern for me since April of this year: working, working, working. It started as an earnest effort to save up cash for renovations, but has quickly turned into an easy excuse to check out of my own life. As luck would have it, as I am numb and autopiloting through the days, wisdom has somehow managed to begin dawning on me. It has been slowly blossoming over the past few months  but really came to clarity on day 6/10 in a row, the peak of my delirium. The wisdom has been growing via a clear ringing bell, a simple and annoying truth: hard work begets hard work and that is literally the only thing that it begets. 

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I suppose I have sort of known this for a long, long time, probably my whole adult life, but it is so impossible to accept and believe that I try to ignore the fact. I allow myself to believe that working is noble and guarantees my financial wellbeing, my fulfillment, my duty to the world. This is an essential belief to my peace of mind. But lately I’ve been plagued by a pestering feeling: why, after working so diligently, do I feel so empty and far from myself? Universes away from life? At first I pointed to the obvious lack of self-care that working 120 hours (plus commuting time) allows for, then I assumed that the taxes being taken out of my big, fat, hard-earned paycheck were just too heartbreaking to bear, or maybe the fact that my work is relatively meaningful and engaging means I am experiencing compassion fatigue. While all of those reasons could certainly stand for an explanation, my misconception regarding the rewards of hard work feels more basic. 

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Because all 120 hours I have felt like I am being useful, productive, and helpful. Because I enjoy my work! Because I have witnessed a dozen miracles in the last 10 days: babies being born, families expanding, removing a tick from some guy’s neck in one piece! Because all of these are good, good things, and I am grateful to have employment at all for one, and also employment that I would definitely do for free if the world collapses and money ceases to exist and we start trading skills. Because despite all of those nice things I have to say about working, (I’m a great worker, the best, so diligent), working only ever gives me back………….more work. 

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I’ve been doing the math, trying to make all of this work mean something, but even the dollar signs that flash in my eyes as I add up all of my overtime, charge nurse pay, and night shift differentials, feels so fleeting. I’m getting this money, I am spending this money, I am saving this money, I need more money, and so on. We all know this already, right? But like, I CANNOT GRASP IT. I thought I got something else out of this? I’ve been working hard, where is my reward?! I told my husband I deadass thought God would come down after this stretch and be like “Girl, good job, you understand hard work and now you will be able to have whatever you want forever and ever AMEN.” Like I am not even lying, I sort of definitely thought that would happen and still am kind of waiting around for that! 

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So as you can imagine, ultimately, God did not come down and say this, but I have been getting a glimmer towards a knowing of my own.

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Let us rewind. As you may have noticed, I have not written anything on this blog for over 4 months, and prior to that had shown up in text a mere 3 times. Mostly due to the aforementioned working so much, but also because I got SCARED and weirded out by having thoughts publicly. You see, I have been offline since 2020 as Katelyn Keeper, and offline completely since 2021 when I sold my bookstore on wheels and disappeared from the internet in totality. I had previous beef with the internet for so many reasons, I will get into them some day, but to sum it up, similarly to my recent learnings about hard work, I came to understand that the internet can only perpetuate itself and while being online both gives and takes, it was taking way too much from me. 

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This is not the first blog I have started and stopped abruptly, (RIP “Petalmob” the lifestyle blog that never was), but it is going to be the first blog I actually tinker with and legitimately launch. The last time I tried to start a blog was around 2018, and I can feel my current self repeating the same patterns as the 26-year-old me. I mean, I guess I will just never learn. So, similarly to 2018 me, I wrote 3 blog posts this year and began to feel the cringe of having the audacity to simply exist to be honest, but more specifically to exist out loud for no good reason other than I have thoughts and ideas, and I feel compelled to document those. There is a broken place inside of me that recoils when I start to ponder a lifestyle beyond being an asset to other people’s lives, or worse, a corporation’s bottom-line. At a mere passing thought of doing any activity that doesn’t serve a purpose or benchmark my brain is screaming “WHO THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU ARE? YOU DON’T DESERVE JOY OR EXPLORATION OR FREEDOM BECAUSE YOU ARE A NOBODY. YOU’RE NOT SPECIAL – GET A JOB LOSER” and so on and so forth. Wow, so mean and horrible and I can’t believe I talk to myself that way when I think I’m a pretty nice person to other people. It’s dawning on me in real time how cruel I am to myself. But to continue with this current objective, I have spent the past 10 days being extremely hardworking and helpful, picking up extra shifts when the floor is short staffed, working extra days for vacation coverage, and becoming barely more financially stable. Amidst the simultaneous numbing/working combo,I ’ve secretly been carrying with me this little gem of understanding growing that I simply must write this blog and explore every interest I have or else this numbness, at the cost of virtue and helpfulness, will rot my very soul.

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This post is the precipice. It could have gone either way for me. I told my husband these past few months have me actually honestly understanding why people become workaholics or truly any other type of -oholic – because the self-abandonment is *chef’s kiss*. It feels really nice to check out of my own life and head to the hospital for 12 hours where everyone else’s problems become mine to solve. Clocking in always brings a certain relief from my own bullshit for a bit. I love getting to work and simply not having the time or mental bandwidth to ponder my own reality. That being so, there is this very rebellious little calling somewhere in my core that comes out when I neglect my own whims and dreams. It starts with me getting extremely whiny about the state of my life, and so I wallow for a while. I am of course very thankful to be the person I am with the privileges that entails…and  yet I also want more for myself. Once I get sick of my own sour attitude, I usually feel empowered by self-agency enough to start working on a project (like this blog). I work a wee bit on something, and suddenly…a road block! I’m back to self-loathing and self-doubt, it’s painful, I escape it by working/shopping/whatever, etc. etc. etc. However, on this very long stretch of shifts amidst a very “employed” season of my life I finally, finally, finally realized something I’ve been struggling to grasp – this is all there is, if this is all I do. 

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Let me rewind again a bit to last November when I saw my house, this house, for the first time in real life. I saw this house, decrepit, nasty, and smelly and noted the *potential*. Not only the standard “good bones” potential, though I definitely (without any formal training whatsoever) made that judgement as well, but actual, real potential. Potential  to set my sails towards a life I had been skirting around for many years. I saw in this house, not only a home to rehab, but something that would require a total remodel of my life. I knew I wanted to document my life in this house. I knew I wanted to document my return to myself. I knew I wanted to document all of my whims and fancies. I’ve known this is something I feel called to do for a long time. And obviously that is very daunting, and again, the audacity! I’m afraid of being judged, and yet I want to be witnessed. I have a deep desire to give myself the permission to live my life the way I desire, and I feel compelled to put it on for show and hope that the permission I give to myself allows other people to give themselves the permission they are looking for as well. We’re all looking around at each other wondering if it is okay. I have never really been assured that it is okay, so I’m deciding for myself that it definitely is. And maybe that gives you the go ahead as well. This house, the projects that making it a home entails, and my general bent towards craftiness and domesticity make now the perfect time to approach the life I’ve lived on Pinterest boards, in journal entries, and in dreams but have yet to experience in reality. 

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I had a passing thought at work the other day and  wrote it on a post-it note: I never took the risk to be creative. 

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That scared me silly! First of all, why is being creative a risk? Like, truly, what is there to lose? I have a job, I earn income, I have a husband, a home. Do I still need approval? From who? What do I consider to be risky about being creative? And the answer is that I don’t want to be a cringey nobody who thinks they are somebody. Writing that out is so supremely embarrassing!! But it’s unfortunately true, and maybe putting this on the internet will be exactly what I need to just get going with it all already and release myself from the *perceived* judgement of people I don’t even know. The last time I wanted to start a blog I was in a similar headspace. I wanted an outlet to explore my creative notions  further. I also wanted an avenue to create income on my own terms, build a business out of work I was curious about, and regain control of my life + time. I abandoned the blog when the idea for the book truck began to come into focus, and I had some seed money to start that venture with inheritance from my dad’s untimely death. This time though, no ill-fated windfall is coming to save me and that scares me…I actually have to do this. I have to get up everyday and write, document, and find inspiration. If I don’t, I have no chance of ever releasing myself from the drudgery of 10-day-in-a-row employment, in both a financial sense (the possibility of affiliate income!) and a creative sense (a girl needs an outlet)! A terrible fate truly. 

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So to wrap this all up succinctly (do I ever?): the concept of work continues to elude me. I have experienced two versions of work: working very hard at employment that provides decent income, feels good enough but also leaves little room for my own life, and working hard at a passion project that provides little income, feels amazing, but also leaves scant room for life outside of it. I am on a perpetual search for a combination of the two: work the piques my curiosity and brings me closer to life, concerted effort towards a goal, very good income, and either work that allows for exploration of my whims, interests, and inspirations or at the very least, leaves ample time for those pursuits. Does this exist? Let’s give it a whirl. 

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