Get a job

get a job

“I think careers are a 20th century invention and I don’t want one,” –Alexander Supertramp

Out of my six best mates all born and raised as red blooded american brood, three of them, including myself, live at home with their parents. Of the three that have permanently flown the coop, two work at coffee shops on the west coast to pay the bills, using their time off to develop their respective art. The other has a “real job,” for a hip wine company in Manhattan, where drinking is encouraged. Still, it’s a corporation, and while initially I wondered if my free spirited, creative friend was selling his soul I realized that if you can take your passion, or one of them, and turn it into a way to make money then you’ve really cracked it, right?

Of all of us still living at home between the ages of 26-29, we all left at some point, mostly for a long while, and came back for one reason or another. Some of us using the time as a stepping stone to the next chapter we’d already planned to write, others using it as a time to figure out how the next chapter will read.

Many critics claim my generation useless. That we have a general malaise and lack of ambition. We’re entitled, and expect everything to be handed to us. I find, at least in my small circle, this is entirely untrue. The problem isn’t that we’re lazy, don’t want to work, or settle down, no–we all work. Most of us several jobs. It’s just that so many of us chose to make money to fuel a venture, rather than the venture being the actual act of making money. Rather than living to work, we simply work to live.

I’m lucky. Other than perhaps if I were born a man, I’ve pretty much hit the lottery as I live a very privileged life as a white, American woman from a middle class family. I’ve never gone hungry or spent a night on the streets, because I’ve always been armed with the knowledge and confidence that there’s a way to make enough money to take care of myself. While I may have spent the last few years making so little money I’d technically be called “impoverished” by the government, I am in no way poor. I just choose to live simply which doesn’t require a lot of money.

It’s starting to happen though, people around me are changing. Pretty soon they might even start to get married, have kids. Another friend in my small circle just got a “real job.” I’m insanely proud of her and have always been quick to spout her academic successes to anyone who will listen. But despite my swelling pride, I can’t help but feel like my friend group is getting gentrified. Like I’ll be the last one standing—holding onto a toilet bowl scrub brush and my dreams of doing something outside of a career.

I’m rounding the corner to 27 years old. I don’t know if it’s me or the pressures from societal norms, yet I can’t help but wonder if I should put more stock in finding a sustainable, long term way to keep money coming in. I don’t want to be 60 and still cleaning toilets or waiting tables. Although for now, if doing that gets me to the next port of call, well, I’m fine with that. At least until I’m 30.

Saying goodbye to the wine industry

The romantic notion of living in a tent on the vineyard while working as a cellar hand during this year’s wine harvest was exactly that, a romantic notion. 20130914-IMG_4343I’m holding on to boat life with slippery fingers. Not quite willing to take that job that requires the car. Not quite willing to leave these islands for the mainland. Not quite willing to trade the smell of brine for the smell of fermented wine. 20131115-IMG_4734The wine harvest has been my means of travel for many years. It’s brought me to new places, afforded me bits of extra cash, and suddenly ended as quickly as it began. It’s been a lesson in impermanence. A lesson in saying goodbye. Being a traveling cellar hand has always felt like being part of this secret club. A club of cellar rats doing a job that anyone could learn if only they knew it existed. Making wine breaks my back, stains my hands and fills my heart each year. But in the end it leaves me homeless in a strange place where I must then move on to more work or more travel. IMG_3066I am part of a different club now, however. Even though that seasonal job with the French winemaker a state away sounded fun, it wasn’t going to get me any closer to my boat. It was going to take me further away. During our phone conversation he said in a thick accent. “This too is my dream, to have a boat and sail away. But you must first buy your freedom.” 20150515-DSC_0958People tell me to apply myself. To get a “real” job. To “do what I love”. To not “work for money.” All seem to contradict themselves. I can’t do what I love without money and a real job would afford me no time to do what I love.