Ode to a Job: The Ballad of Validation

I am a writer.

I can trace my obsession with writing to my 5^th grade English class where I self-published my first short story – The Mall Marauders. It was about 3 best friends who uncover a dress smuggling ring operating out of a Laura Ashley dressing room. I still consider it my best short story to date.

The point is, I’ve been writing a long time. It’s all I’ve ever wanted to do and the only thing I’ve consistently been passionate about throughout every phase of my life. And, if I do say so myself, I’m pretty good at it.

So why then, do I feel like I’m not “really” a writer unless I’m making money doing it? When someone at the proverbial cocktail party asks you, “What do you do?” and you say, “I’m a writer,” the inevitable follow-up question is, “What do you write?” Before becoming a stay-at-home mom, I had no trouble answering this question. “I’m a copywriter,” I would answer proudly.

Now I know, I know… Copywriting is the hepatitic whore of the writing world. Where any given meeting or creative brief might include such dignified phrases as youth market infiltration, value engineering and human directionals (read: selling shit to kids, cutting corners and those poor guys who stand on the side of the road holding the arrow signs).

Truth be told, I hated it. I couldn’t wait to quit. The whole time my husband and I were trying to get pregnant I kept thinking things like, “If I could just get pregnant and quit my job, I’d have so much more time to write screenplays as a stay-at-home mom.” What a load of dirty diapers!

So anyway, that’s what I did, and to my surprise (but to no one else’s reading this who has kids), I had less time to write screenplays than ever before and even worse, when I got asked, “What do you do,” I didn’t even feel like I could legitimately tell people I was a writer any more. Because let’s face it, if you tell someone you’re a writer and then you don’t have a paid gig to back it up, well, you’re viewed about the same as some tortured teen with Cheetos-stained fingers spewing verbal vomit into a journal.

It’s amazing how much validation is contained in a paycheck. I did not realize this until I found myself without one for the first time in my life. I had always thought having a child would be the ultimate validation. It’s not. It’s not even close. And if you’re one of those parents that tells everyone how parenting is a blessed joy every minute and you’re forever wrapped in a cotton-candy blanket of bliss that only a brood of forever-needy children can provide, well then I’ve got some verbal vomit I’d like to spew your way.

So this week I started a new job. The first one I’ve had in almost 4 years. And I’m ecstatic and terrified in equal parts. I love the thrill of getting the job – knowing that you have marketable skills that someone wants. I love money – I can’t wait to get that first paycheck.

But I’m also having to scratch away at those butt-munching chiggers of doubt. What if I don’t do a good job or have enough time or hate it? And the guilt… Will I be as good of a mom if I’m working? How much more time is this going to take away from the time I should be spending with my daughter?

And what about my screenplays!?!

I honestly don’t have an answer to any of these questions. The only thing I know for sure is that somebody better invite my ass to a cocktail party quick!