After living through a period of financial uncertainty (people thought I had cancer, but I simply couldn’t afford to eat), I never want to lie awake running sums in my head and coming up short, ever again. Scarlett O’Hara-esque, I made a vow that I’d never be licked, economically. To my credit, I refrained from posting "you don’t know how strong you are until being strong is the only choice you have", on Instagram.
Scarlett O’Hara didn’t let something as small as the burning of the entire city of Atlanta get to her. Returning home to find her beloved plantation, Tara, in ruins, she swears, "As God is my witness, I'm going to live through this and when it's all over, I'll never be hungry again. If I have to lie, steal, cheat or kill ..."
I didn’t need to resort to such extreme measures, but I do work for the council. When I first switched from columnist to comms I received some "How could you?" letters. Terribly sorry that I chose fridge security over your reading pleasure, Annoyed, of South Dunedin.
So, I’ve got my main job and I’ve got side jobs all over the place, and I pedal my hamster wheel pretty fast to make it all work. Quite often, I jerk awake at 3am, worrying that I’ve forgotten my mother’s birthday or sent a confidential email to a journalist. It wouldn’t be so bad if I hadn’t recently started gaslighting myself.
To begin with, I was pretty sure someone was breaking in and messing with stuff to erode my confidence and make me question my sanity, but it turned out to just be me. My brain has turned on its host. Am I wearing pants? I wasn’t at 3.45am last week when I had to be driven to my house in the middle of a sleepover to check I hadn’t left the oven on. Mooning the South Hill, destined to be one of those old ladies who is always accusing people of stealing her pearls, it was a sad indictment of a woman at the pinnacle of her career, experienced but not yet visibly falling apart, so junior staff respect rather than pity you.
Earning peaks at 53 in many occupations, so there’s not a lot of point in working much longer, which is great because I’m pretty over it. Anxiety, insomnia, feeling stressed ... there are times I think about breaking my dominant arm. There are times I accidentally laugh when someone asks me to do something else. The filter that stops me uttering profanities has completely failed. At the end of the working day all I can manage is flopping on the couch followed by flopping into bed. I’m beginning to think that this might not be an ideal way to live out my one and only life. I’m beginning to think the slackers might be right, after all.
It was slacker Ferris Bueller who said, "Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”
The mountain man, in whose verdant chest hairs I sometimes find solace, and popcorn kernels, thinks jobs are for people with no social skills. A self-employed slacker king, he works as much as he needs to in summer and then takes off all winter. He doesn’t fret if an email goes unanswered. He often says annoying yet irrevocably true things like "No-one will stand up at your funeral and say that you ran a great meeting".
With Ferris Bueller’s Day Off in mind, I gave myself the slip on the weekend, stepped off my self-imposed treadmill and went to the Twizel Salmon and Wine Festival. It was a sunny day spent sitting on the grass next to Lake Ruataniwha. The Saggy Britches Band played while kids paddle-raced a giant plastic swan against a duckie.
There were a lot of white people going pink. There were a lot of tribal tattoos. Acres of black lines, men who looked like they’d been raked by panther claws, cultural-appropriation galore. I sat in the sun. I drank beer. I ate salmon. I had a snooze on the way back (don’t panic, I wasn’t driving) and throughout the whole lovely day I felt periodically guilty for not staying at home and mowing the lawns.
You should be working, said my brain.
"Shut up brain," I said.
"I’m not taking advice from the likes of you."
