This week, I started working at an all plant-based Mexican restaurant. Not exactly a dream come true, but it’s a job, and I get paid. I get to move around, interact with people, make delicious food, and get out of the house. It will be fine for now. Who knows, I might actually come to love it.
It’s part of the lifestyle. I’m living in New Zealand. I have to remind myself of that sometimes since it still seems somewhat unreal. Having this job right now is just a small piece of the bigger picture. It helps enable me to be here, living in this wonderful, vibrant city where I can run in the hills and by the sea. It’s a job with flexible hours, even flexible seasons that match the times when I might want to go away so as a lifestyle piece, this might work out just fine.
I need to get back to knowing that a job doesn’t define who I am. It is a means to an end. I don’t need to love my job, as long as it serves me and I don’t serve it. When it starts to feel the other way around, that’s when there is a problem.
Mostly, I am happy to have something to do. Someplace to go. A purpose to my day. It has been so long it seems. I have not worked a day since April. Crazy.
It’s hard going through life without a sense of purpose. But maybe it’s a less complex idea than that. It’s hard to go through life without a place to be, or any responsibilities to anybody other than yourself. You just wake up in the morning and don’t know what to do.
Hard. That’s probably the wrong term for this, isn’t it? Hard would be not being able to work and wanting to. Hard is not being able to feed your family. My life has never been hard.
We’ve been in Wellington for three weeks and we’ve stayed in three different places now. There is a view out over the hills here and we have a little more room to spread out. Still, we will pack our bags one more time before we get into a more permanent lodging situation. We are like a stone skipping across the water. Slowly we are getting closer and closer to coming to a stop and sinking down to rest. Hopefully, we will like where we land.
Perfect dirtbag job. And I mean that as a compliment.
Let’s see, Royal Robbins said, “ Do what you like, or like what you do. Those are your two choices and anything else is a form of slavery.”
Thanks, Suzanne. I agree completely. I hope you are well. Come to see us in New Zealand if you get the chance.