Inefficent

Yesterday, I went to the dentist. As most freelance writers will tell you, I don’t have dental insurance. When the bill came for some very much needed dental work, I was shocked by the $10k price tag. They wanted me to sign up for a credit card that they will charge it to and I’ll be paying so much plus interest. $10,000 treatments and debt up to my ears that I’ve never had in my life.

I didn’t get the credit card. I told them I was looking into some insurance options for dental and left.

For the first time in 10 years, I felt inefficent. My income wasn’t good enough to pay for my teeth to be repaired. I went home and wondered what it was like to have a salary. Dental insurance. A 401K. All the things “normal people” get but I’ve never had the luxury of. I cried that night because I felt I couldn’t support myself as well as I would like. I felt like I didn’t make enough money, working part time. for $15 an hour.

I am going to school in the fall to learn physics. I’m 29, have been working from home for 10 years as a writer and doing other part time work. I’ve lived on very low income for many years just for the beauty of simplicity and only needing to work part time hours to live the life I want. Maybe that’s a lie. Maybe I’ve been burned by a few well paying clients and now I don’t want the burn and hassle of dealing with clients that will pay me more, so I stick with content mills and other low paying hourly jobs. (OK, $15 an hour isn’t low pay I guess, but when you freelance, and you don’t have health insurance, it’s low.)

I feel the same this morning, but now looking for answers from career coaches online and from other people willing to share their advice and ideas. I’m a problem solver, not a moper. However, today I can’t seem to figure out a solution.

I’m already applying to dental insurance to help pay for some dental work. The problem for that is OK, however, I think my bigger problem is, my bravado for working as a freelancer is squashing when I realize I’m ineffecient right now. My skills are par, my drive to seek better paying clients are lingering.

So here’s some empathy for people who sometimes feel inefficent when they are living a low income life. Sometimes, it sucks because you feel you can’t pay for things you need that other people get when they have a career with benefits. It’s not being part of the ‘normalcy’ that everyone else takes forgranted.

But I still get to sleep in most weekdays.