secretary

about two months ago, i got a census survey in the mail. i filled it out, and in the spot where it asked for my occupation i got confused. the truth is i haven't worked a real job in almost exactly a year. i haven't been a secretary in a whole year and i never ever wanted to be one in the first place. the most accurate description i guess would have been housewife, but at the time we weren't married. so, i put artist. and i smiled and slipped it in the envelope and that was that.

about one month ago, i filled out the form for our marriage license. there was that occupation spot again and my same dilemma. i thought about artist and how good that had felt to write and how i wanted to write it again but instead i wrote secretary and i although i wrote it quickly, it didn't feel good at all.

and i'm not sure why it even mattered to me so much, why i couldn't just write down whatever the hell i wanted, and the only difference between the two forms is that for the first one i was alone and for the second one people would have seen that i was lying, that i wasn't an artist at all but just a secretary. and that would be not just embarrassing but humiliating.

i've been thinking about why i haven't worked towards my goals and dreams, not one bit of work towards them in a year of having absolutely nothing else to do. and the only thing i can come up with is that it's embarrassing. i'm so unsure of myself. i want to keep these dreams secret, because i think they are foolish, because then if i fail no one will know.

when i am alone, when i lived alone, i wrote so much, i made art (or tried to). but i just can't do it in front of anyone, even someone i love and trust so much it hurts, someone i know will understand and be crazily supportive and even proud. one time i got really drunk, i pulled out my computer and showed jack some of the things i did when he was away. some collages, a website, photographs. and he went on about how wonderful it all was and that he had no idea and why didn't i tell him what i was doing. and i never showed him anything again.

and i know all this is inside of me and i just don't know how to deal with it. what is wrong with me and how do i make it go away?