Tits Up Time?

After a weekend of tropical storms in dear old London, I made my way to work in sunshine this morning, listening to Bonnie “Prince” Billy, fretting about my job. Having had a poor upbringing, in which my mum’s luck seemed to be permanently crap, I always start to worry when things are going well. A nagging fear creeps up on me – an anxiety that I’m going to lose my job and fall through the financial cracks into poverty. So, as I’m getting married, may finally be freed from my mortgage with Lucy (and therefore be able to buy a home) and appear to be making a success of my job, I’m waiting for everything to go tits up.

My current paranoia revolves around the fact that I’m going through a quiet patch at work. Only about 50% of my time is billable at the moment and in the agency world that’s enough to make one extremely insecure. After having felt rather pleased with myself for building up the copywriting practice at my agency, I’m now worried that not enough work is coming in.

This is my version of the immutable law of creative life: it’s either too busy or too quiet. The busy end of the spectrum leads to stress, hair loss and comfort eating. The quiet end leads to paranoia, insecurity and comfort eating.

And, in my experience, there is never a happy medium.