Tightrope Walker

My "job" requires me to be many things, more things than a person can be without losing a few patches of hair to despair. Balancing my personal business (The Scented Djinn) and my cooperative business (Natural Perfume Academy) has never been easy, and now, in a moment of utter insanity, I've picked up a third business/project to help look after (www.belatekallim.org). After almost 14 years, I am still struggling to find the balance between TSD, NPA, and life. I ruminated on this dilemma just before drifting off to sleep last night, how many hats I wear on a daily basis, how 'unemployment' isn't something I've ever experienced, but poverty is, and how I am literally doing exactly the same things now that I did 20 years ago, even 30 years ago, with little to no help. My life has become a loop. 

Right now before me are a half dozen student perfume submissions from the March 2021 course that require evaluating, and a pile of dirty dishes in the sink. There are at least 50 to 75 more pages to write in the advanced workshops for NPA, and an enormous backlog of dirty household, not personal, laundry sitting in baskets. I can ask for help with the domestic stuff, but it's easier to do it myself than it is to bear the bullsh*t from someone who doesn't want to do it at all and then make sure that everyone knows it by their use of long-string expletives and banging about. And then there are the housework injuries to manage. My back! My feet! My arms! My hands! Oh! I banged my head while wiping down the microwave! It kind of makes one wonder how they've survived all these decades of life since they somehow become mangled in clothes dryer accidents at least once a month. They can all cook, though, clearly evidenced by the pile of dirty dishes in the sink that had nothing to do with dinner, breakfast, or even lunch. Who cooks 'snacks' anyway? And why does making a sandwich require 10 dinner forks, a spatula, two butter knives, a half-spilled can of sweetened condensed milk, and a tambourine?!

Sorry.

There is progress, though. I am managing a few thousand words a week on the advanced courses, and am daily helping with administrative duties (policy, policy, policy) for the new project, and, of course, for NPA. Big things are happening -- accreditation, a better, streamlined course, more content, new teachers teaching new courses, a safe place to gather. It's all coming together beautifully.