I Don't Care What Color My *&#%ing Parachute Is

As long as the damn thing opens.

So, last week I did one of those half-brave, half-stupid things about which epic ballads are never written. I quit my jobs. All of them.

On the strength of several people telling me I have a modicum of writing talent (not all of them related to me or friends with me or owing me money), I gave up both my day jobs and my night job. It's Wednesday of the first week of being gainfully unemployed, and I'm starting to panic.

While being without a steady source of income is something of a family tradition, I'm not terribly comfortable with it. I make fun of my wee little cave, but that doesn't mean I want to lose it. I'd suck as a homeless person. Remember the toilet incident and the subsequent I-can't-believe-I-have-to-pee-in-the-park meltdown? Now try to imagine me carrying around all my earthly belongings, my two fat cats, and trying to find a place to plug in my electric toothbrush that also has WiFi. It just wouldn't work. And what would Chase Manhattan do with my cave, anyway? Open up a very tiny, very dark, very cramped Beacon Hill branch?

So I'm feeling a bit stressed. Stress is a funny thing. It's a bit like having an annoying roommate of the kind that sneaks up behind you and jabs you in the ribs when you were having an otherwise very nice afternoon. It lurks around dark corners and hides in the "balance" column of my checking account keeping-track thingy. It makes me hungry, then totally puts me off my food, and it turns me into a snapping turtle every time poor Toasty fails to be appropriately sympathetic.

Tonight stress made me go for a run. Actually, I made me go for a run, because I like to think of myself as the kind of person who, when stressed, does something like jogging. This fantasy version of myself is at constant war with my real self who wants to put on her jim jams and fold up on the couch, weeping into a mutantly oversized bowl of popcorn.

But, if I tally up the pros and cons, the yays and the boos, in the end I'm still coming out ahead. I won't be commuting this fall, which means I can put my rabid, mouth-frothing, screaming, cursing but still admirably articulate driver-self on hold for the time being. I won't be teaching, which means I'll probably like people generally a whole lot better. I'll be able to spend more time with the people I care about, maybe even go jogging from time to time.

And who knows? I might just end up with the job that was worth getting all stressed out for.