half of life is maintenance (2)
Posted 23 August, 2005 in that is f'ed up., life shiz
I thought I had read a quote somewhere that said “Half of life is maintenance,” but when I searched for it, I couldn’t get any hits. If anyone knows who said this, please tell me, because recently I have been thinking about how true that statement is.
Every day I do a variety of things to maintain myself and my life. I do things I pretty much have to do: pay the bills/rent, bathe myself somewhat regularly, clean the litterbox. I do things I want to do, but which in themselves are only mildly enjoyable and sometimes painful: write, pluck my eyebrows, organize our apartment, do yoga.
Sometimes I am tempted to skip some of the more optional things. OK, a lot of the time. It’s because they don’t get me somewhere immediately. I don’t really get an instant reward from walking 20 minutes to work; in fact, I get sweaty and frazzled-looking. But if I keep at it, I will get fit. So I try to keep doing it. It’s the same with writing. If I write a page a day at the minimum, I won’t instantly become a published author overnight. But in a year, I’ll have a 365-page book. So I write my one measly page every day.
I’ve felt this way about life since I was about 15, when I had tons of schoolwork and realized it was better to do it all on time, and do it somewhat well, than slack off. If I kept up on my work, no one would hassle me, and I could party like a motherfucker on the weekends without much risk of getting caught. I have the same philosophy with much of my maintenance stuff now: I just grit my teeth and do it, because it will be way less hassle if I do. Now it isn’t teachers who are after me; it is the Man, which is a bit more serious.
But sometimes maintenance just fucking blows, I’m sorry. I hate emptying my bank account on bills and rent every month. I wish I could just ignore the bills and hoard my money. Sometimes I just want to stop in the middle of doing yoga and go have a cigarette. (Sometimes I do.) There are days I feel more like shoving a red hot poker up my ass than writing anything at all. I wish my fingernails and toenails, and eyebrow hairs, would just stop growing so I wouldn’t have to keep trimming and plucking them. MAINTENANCE SUCKS.
But I will probably still do yoga tonight.