An MFRW Author Post – And check out the other blogs on the hop! 

 

relaxing-1979674_1920We’re leaving tomorrow morning on a six am flight to Boston and I’m stressed. Not about the trip, but about the piles of work that have been stacking up in the week since before the holidays, work that everyone else is getting back to doing and I’m going to attempt to complete while on the road. The beauty of being self-employed, of being able to take my work with me, is that I make my own schedule, I book my own tickets, my time belongs to me–if I am smart with it. 

Because of that, I could never take a stay-cation. 

What is a stay-cation, but the chance to sit back and enjoy creature comforts, to spend the day on the couch, to meander to the gym mid-morning and to read throughout lunch? I am the master of my own destiny, and I already to get to do those things–and I wouldn’t know how to stop. 

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Writing for a living means I don’t have a weekend. It means I need to be selfish with my time and not apologize when I need to complete a project. It means I need to be the one to say stop, when I’ve been working too long or not getting enough sleep and it means I need to be the one to turn down the things I would rather do when there just aren’t enough hours in the day. For me, a staycation would be the equivalent of parking a sleeping bag at the office. I simply couldn’t stay home and not work. 

To be fair, I don’t think this is a bad thing. I think it can be very challenging to manage a freelancer’s lifestyle and it’s something I’m still learning. I don’t think it’s the right path for everyone, but I know it’s the right path for me. I love the freedom and I love the opportunities that come when I don’t need to worry about a single job and a single boss. I can always be searching for the next great project and when it comes, I’m allowed to take it. This means I can go to Boston and then California, that I can book tickets and worry about the workload later, that I’m always around for concerts and movies because two hours now or two hours later is still two hours. 

coffee-1283672_1920I don’t know the last vacation I took. This trip to visit family in Boston and then California is going to be busy and not very relaxing. We went to Montana for three days over the summer, but it took nearly as long to get there, and my big trip to New York was for a writer’s conference, but that’s not the point. 

I don’t need a staycation or a vacation because I’m living a life I don’t want to escape from. I have freedom and opportunity. I control my work and I pick the projects I want to dedicate my time to. I work very hard, but I’m also very lucky and I know it. 

So six am flight and a week spent on both coasts while completing projects for half a dozen clients? Yeah, bring it on. 

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