I Heard the Beat and I Ain’t Know What to Write

Or It’s Just Crumbling Herb

So today I lost my job. Well, not exactly. What would be more accurate is to say is I’ve lost the privilege to go into my job for the foreseeable future due to circumstances beyond my immediate control. But all that’s a whole ‘nother talk show, as my brother Mark would say. Getting hit with that reality is enough to put things into perspective. But then, this ain’t nothin’ new. I been in this position before.

In all honesty, it takes me back to when my pops retired from his jobs six months early, losing out on a few hundred bucks a month all because his asshole boss was making life uncomfortable, and as it turned out, legally problematic for anyone under his purview. I couldn’t understand at the time, especially when in 2 short months after his retirement that particular boss and over a dozen other city workers from his department were indicted in one of the biggest scandals in Chicago history.

Age and experience has taught me to appreciate my father’s foresight, but at the time all I could see is that my pops let somebody get in the way of his money and force him to bow out before he was ready. That was a milestone moment for me. In that moment I said I would never put myself in a position where I’m dependent upon somebody else for my money. This is where my passion for business was born, but life has a way of making you get off the pot if you not ready to make a deposit.

It sucks to not be in control of your income. The thing I’ve been contemplating recently though is what’s worse is not having control of your time. Take this evening for instance. Somehow, a door in my brain has been opened based around the fact that I have just a little time to think. Sometimes, that’s all that’s missing. Between external distractions and…well, shit…being distractible, I never seem to get a moment to just sit and really think. Now that I have, I’m getting something close to clarity.

Seems like I’m always preaching the importance of personal branding to my people, when in reality I been in chill mode way too long. I mean, sure I have a FB page for my writing. And yeah, I got those short stories I’ve got written here on Medium, but I haven’t been pushing them worth shit. To be real, a lot of that has simply to do with reluctance, whether I would admit it on a regular basis or not, revolving around pure self-doubt. Those same voices telling me that this would be a waste of time, or “you know it ain’t no money in that writing shit”, are telling me, in this moment, to “wrap this shit up B!” May have a point on that one. I gotta go to work in the morning. Oh, yeah, that’s right: “I ain’t got no damn job!” Maybe one day I’ll be all the better for it…