An Explanation
This isn’t going to be elegant, it’s just going to be the truth how I see it.
I’m having a really rough time right now, and I don’t know what to do about it. A little background: I left my day job in June of 2022. I worked for Harris County Justice Court as a court clerk, since 1995. Over 27 years. I never intended to be there that long - it just happened. I had ambitions, but rarely acted on them. In 1995 I was seeing someone seriously, who I later married. But at the time, I thought my job was only a transition to something more creative, I just didn’t know what yet. I had no college degree (still don’t), but it was full-time, 8 hours a day, weekends off, great benefits, great retirement.
So I worked there, eventually moving up the ladder to become the supervisor of the Civil department. The Civil department runs small claims court, credit card lawsuits, and evictions. Lots and lots of evictions. I helped streamline how evictions were processed and handled, and I could always tell if something was going on in the economy when evictions would rise and fall. Before the crash of 2008, evictions spiked. When the pandemic hit, evictions would have spiked again had the federal and state governments not taken steps. Some of those steps are still in place, but I’ll be frank - it’s a lousy time to be a tenant right now, and although you may think otherwise, it’s a lousy time to be a landlord as well. I’d like to live in that place where people didn’t have to pay rent, but that’s just not reality, and hoping otherwise doesn’t make it so.
I was good at my job, or at least I’d like to think so, but that doesn’t mean I enjoyed it. I hated it most of the time, but it was serving its purpose - keeping the lights on, putting a roof over my family’s heads, and while it wasn’t the most comfortable life, I had it better financially than a lot of the creatives I considered (and still consider) my colleagues and friends. That didn’t keep me from wishing for another life - covering movie junkets, writing about film, writing fiction. I’m as left-leaning as they come, so working a job where I saw people losing their homes and seeing slumlords just walk through life unpunished took its toll on my mental and physical health. I’m still paying for that. My eyes are shot, my diabetes ravages my body, and lately my feet haven’t been great. I didn’t talk about my day job much (still don’t) because most of the time it makes me feel like a hypocrite. I talk the talk, but I haven’t walked the walk in a long time.
My day job provided for my life, but I lost a lot through it as well. In 2007, the best man at my wedding and my boss at the time (Justice of the Peace is an elected position, and while I am a county employee I am hired at the whims of my boss, who is the judge) had a severe falling out. He was the Chief Clerk of the office and responsible for me getting hired on in the first place. It’s a long story, but he eventually sued my boss, quit and ran against him for Justice of the Peace, but he lost the election. That friendship, one that I’ve had since 1980, was in tatters, never to be repaired. I miss him as a friend, but I don’t think we’ll ever speak again. We had our differences, surely, and sometimes he came across as more of a bully than a friend (my wife never liked him), but I still miss him.
This day job exhausted me creatively as well - I wrote reviews for the sites I worked for as a side gig, but it took a lot of energy for me to do it, for what seemed like little pay off. Oh, there were small victories, some bigger than others, and I don’t regret any of it, except in the way I blinded myself to some things. I still enjoy writing about movies. But I know now that it was always a hobby, and never anything more than that. This hobby has done some remarkable things for me, and put me in some remarkable places, but I have to face the fact that I just can’t make it happen - that ship has sailed. I’m 53, with health issues, and I just don’t see myself in a place where I can make it work.
I retired from the court last year. The benefits that I accrued made it possible - I have a monthly pension now that pays the big bills, while my wife’s income covers the rest. I planned for this at least a year ago, thinking this free time would make me more creative and constructive. I fully intended to write every day. I read books on it, tried to be more constructive with my time, and I had plans (including working on this Substack).
It didn’t happen. Oh, I was able to do some things, we took a much needed vacation to Los Angeles last month, and I went to Fantastic Fest and covered that pretty well, I think, but I barely wrote anything otherwise. Instead, I found myself staring at the ceiling a lot of the time, or binging old TV shows, watching comfort movies, and writing a few reviews. Fiercely lonely, too. Don’t get me wrong, I love my family, but I’ve barely been out of the house since June. I rarely see friends. I can’t drive at night much anymore, and haven’t seen anyone in my circle for a long time. Sure, the pandemic hasn’t made that any easier, but I can’t even bring myself to Zoom people.
I have my podcast, but few people listen. I still enjoy doing it, but even that feels like a slog. Right now I’m fighting these incredibly loud voices in my head just writing this, the voices telling me why bother, no one’s reading anyway, no one listens, no one cares. Thing is, I’m believing them more and more. I’ve been writing about movies for more than 20 years. And it still feels like, in many ways, I’m barely in the room. I see colleagues making a serious go at it, doing far better than I am, and they plug at it and have been plugging at it every day for years, but since I’ve been working the day job, I feel like that window of opportunity for me has closed. I’m not invited to junkets (I’m not in LA, so I imagine that’s a big part of it, but still), and I have no idea where I’m at as a creative because I rarely get any input on my writing. I sometimes think I’m like some trick dog to people, something cute to point to but never giving anything substantial.
In a bit of desperation, I thought that if I went back to work at my old job, and brought that income in (even though we don’t need it as much, but I won’t lie, it would be helpful - we’re not broke, but it would be nice to have more breathing room), that I might get something of a groove going. My old job has a place for me - I won’t be a supervisor anymore, but that’s fine, I don’t need the added stress and aggravation. Instead, I’ll just work court, but I won’t be responsible for scheduling or organizing dockets. I’ll just run it. But still, it feels like a failure. Tail tucked between my legs, going back to work, not really putting my everything into my writing and creativity.
I know I didn’t, either. So many wasted hours these past few months. Just powering through this, I can feel everything in every part of me fighting it. I love having written, but l’m telling you, the process is agony for me. Sometimes inspiration will strike but mostly I feel… inert. I love having written, but I hate myself when I write, and I hate myself when I don’t.
So I’m going back to work. I start back Monday. This will be nothing more than a hobby. I have to make peace with that. There will be some of you who read this and try to offer words of encouragement, and while I appreciate the sentiment, it’s not going to do me much practical good.
I feel that if I had deadlines, or someone counting on my writing, some sort of structure, than maybe I could pull myself out of it. But the unstructured life isn’t doing it and I’m running out of time and options. This isn’t my last post or anything, I’ll still write about what holds my interest, or movies, or whatever. Just know that I’m mostly broken, and while I know that there are many people who have it worse than me right now, that I’m lucky to even have the options that I do, those options are wasted on me because I can’t make this happen the way that I need to. I’m lazy, and unmotivated, depressed as hell at the world, and while you can recommend therapy all day to me I don’t see it getting me to the place I want to be, instead just making me satisfied with where I am, which is somehow worse. I appreciate you reading, and I needed to get this out there.