So I slept on all the things that upset me and woke up in the morning feeling a lot better. After all, nothing's changed. Now I just know about it. Damn, wasn't ignorance blissful?
So what if people bitch about my dances? They've always bitched about my dances. The day people stop bitching about me is the day after my funeral-- although it might be safe to say they'll still bitch about me after I'm dead. That's just a condition of being alive. Can't help it, can't really waste the energy to be upset about it.
I have been asking myself, though: What am I working so hard for?
Why am I working so damn hard? It's 5 am and I haven't gotten any sleep and I'm sitting next to the computer listening for music I might dance to in the next competition and doing exercises to strengthen my wrists so I can do new pole tricks. Why?
I know now that there's no way under the sun I could've won Miss Nude Tennessee. I was the only girl giving a 100% legal dance. Of course mine was going to be the least sexy out of all of them. In fact, it was really rather silly of me to try in the first place. Even if my stage work had been excellent and my swimsuit piece flawless, I still probably wouldn't have had a shot in hell of winning. (I still think the girls who won deserved it, but I want to know how far down the rung I ended up because of my silly lap dances.)
And none of that even matters. What matters is why? Why? Who am I trying to impress?
I'm working on my novels. I'm trying so hard to get Justine out and published. I'm writing out the layout for Promethean Riddle #3 while penning down #2. Who reads this stuff anyway?
I work my butt off every time I sell a dance to a guy. I do anything I can think of to amuse and entertain him (within the letter of the law). I make it my own personal goal during that song to make that guy smile. And he still goes and bitches to the next girl how I cheated him out of his money. Why should I dance for him at all? Why I don't I stand in front of him and just sort of vaguely rock from side to side then grumble at him, "Sorry, no refunds." Will it even make that much of a difference to these guys?
And then I tell myself to stop acting like a drama queen. I do my best on the lap dances because I at least owe it to these guys to try and be entertaining. And besides, it gives me exercise which makes me healthy.
And as for the books, I'm doing all that craziness because I'm hoping-- praying-- pleading with the powers above-- that if I can maybe maybe get enough people to read even one of those novels and give me good reviews (or, hell, any reviews) I can pitch my work to an agent. I can say, "See, I've done the work, I just need a publisher to add a bit of polish and help me make it bigger."
The thing is, right now, I'm doing the work, and there's no reward. There's no end in sight. There's just me and the work. And every now and then I find myself wondering if I'm just kidding myself.
I love what I do. I really and truly love it. I will be doing these things until the day I die. Maybe I'll just be doing them for myself, though. Maybe I'll write my books just because I get depressed when I'm not creating something. Maybe I'll keep dancing just to keep my health up. I'll probably be doing these things when I'm ninety.
And yet, I can't help but think I'm leaving something undone. There's some avenue I haven't taken yet. There's someone I haven't talked to yet. There's something--something-- that I haven't tried. And that something's the key. Whatever it is, wherever I find it, once I've done this thing, I'll start making progress.
Then again, that probably isn't how it works.
Someone who wanted to be a millionaire told me that he was at least pursuing the goal of a million dollars. He was that much farther ahead of all other people who wanted it but did nothing to get it. Every step I take puts me that much farther ahead of all the other people out there striving to reach the top.
Will I ever reach it? Dunno. I do know that if I stop trying now, then I definitely won't reach it.
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