Back in business

For a while now, i have been thinking that I need to get back to writing this blog on a regular basis. I took off from a full-time job exactly a month ago and today seems the perfect day to celebrate - India's 61st Independence Day and a sign of my own freedom from a rather stultifying work routine. But, as Father always points out, there has been no break from working, not yet. I am at his computer every day, bashing out an article or trying to get past that dreadful feeling of not knowing what to write and how to get about writing it, since there is a deadline and an editor breathing heavily and passionately (though not affectionately) down your email link and occasionally sending you a nasty SMS to ask just when in heck you plan to deliver your copy.
Sigh. And I thought I was done with all that!
Quitting a job is not easy. Rationalising your need to get the paycheck isn't either. It was great to work at something you had no interest in, grouch madly at home that you really didn't want to work at that job and take home the money at the end of every month. It assuaged the conscience and made spending a taken-for-granted matter. Now, since there is no paycheck coming in regularly, and I am not really looking at one for a while yet (it does not seem to be looking at me either at close range), I get attacks of guilt if I long for a lipstick, a pair of shoes or a new diamond, but those are blended with a little voice with a chuckle in it that says hey, you don't have to wear shoes and put on your makeup and your jewellery and go out, you can swan around in your pajamas all day and feel happily fat and smug about being free.
Am I free, is something I ask myself at least once a day. I can plan my own day the way I want to, but I am also tied down by the routines of the maid, the driver, the various people who traipse in and out, Father's work, Small Cat's whims and fancies and the television I want to watch. And then there are the people who want work done, when they want it done, not when I want to do it. Yeah, at some level this is the life I asked for and managed to get for myself. But is it what I want to do long term? That is something I need to get working on now....