Below is one of my “tales of the creative life.” To get a new tale each Tuesday, please subscribe here.
For fifteen years, Maria had squeaked by as a graphic artist. Her plan had been to make enough money as a graphic artist to allow her to pursue her love of painting, but, as it turned out, she rarely painted, spending just about all of her time and energy on paid work that took forever to complete, that stressed her out, and that paid little.
So, in her mid-thirties, she returned to the “real world” of work and, after almost two years of retraining herself and looking for a job, she landed a high-stress job working as a project manager for a company that curated corporate events.
One Sunday, she managed to make time for her friend Rose, whom she hadn’t seen in months. They met at their favorite café off their favorite Roman square, next to a bakery famous for its hard-crusted Roman rolls.
Maria caught Rose up. Rose, dismayed by the picture Maria was painting and worried for Maria’s health, exclaimed, “What is your exit strategy?”
Maria shook her head. “I can’t have an exit strategy. I have to spend at least two years at this job, so that I have something solid-looking on my résumé. Otherwise, I will be completely unemployable.”
“Well … at least … maybe you can paint on Saturdays?”
Maria shook her head. “I’m still working on Saturdays. I’m working all the time.”
“But …” Rose bit her lip. She wanted to say, “But what about time with your husband, and time with friends, and playing with your nephews and nieces, and just strolling around Rome like you used to do, and …” But she held her tongue.
“It is what it is,” Maria said.
Rose wanted to say many things. Maria read her mind and said, “It’s not a puzzle to be solved or a problem to be fixed. It is what it is.”
Rose gathered up her things. “All right, then.”
“You’re angry with me? For having to keep a job?”
“I’m …” Indeed, she was angry, or maybe frustrated. “I’m … disappointed.”
“In me?”
“No!”
“It must be in me,” Maria said, hanging her head.
“It isn’t!” Rose exclaimed. “I can’t fault you. I’m disappointed … I’m disappointed that life is like this.”
They sat on for some time, not speaking. When, in the normal course of events, it would have been time for them to order a second cappuccino, they didn’t. Finally, Maria sighed.
“I have to go home and get some work done,” she said.
“Of course,” Rose replied.
Once outside, they said their goodbyes. As each of them expected, they made no plans to meet again.