The first thing people say to you when they hear you are a touring musician is almost always this wistful, smiling, admiration-intoned cliche: “You’re living the dream.” I’ve commented on this before.
At a poetry open mic last night, one of my brother’s friends recognized me and asked me about my travels. Though she did not use the expression, “living the dream,” she asked me the question that almost always comes right after people say that, which is, “How do you like it?”
It’s a strange question to answer. How do I like (living the dream)? I mean, if the person asks the question that way, there’s a certain expectation that the answer will be positive. I mean, how would you answer if someone asked you how you liked living the nightmare?
But this is not a nightmare, by any stretch. And it is also not the dream. Like so many things in life, it is almost nothing like what people think it is, best or worst case.
I am on this kick today because my answer to the question changes on a daily basis. If I am having a good day, the answer is usually the one people expect they will get. If I am having a bad day, I often give them the answer they are expecting to get with a public relations sort of inflection.
It’s rare that I tell people I don’t like it, because for the most part I do. It’s rare that I will tell people that I am scared.
But today I am scared and I feel like telling people about it.
I am looking at my bank account. It is not a bad-looking bank account. There are three accounts that each have their purpose. I trained myself to forget that one of them is there at all. This savings account contains the check they cut me for my destroyed car, which, when combined with things that should be coming, will replace it. So I don’t think about that money because that money just has to sit and wait until there is more of it and a car to buy.
The second account is one I feed, but otherwise forget it’s existence as well. This is my “Bill” account, which I established before we went on tour knowing that bills would be coming to the house that I might not see for a few weeks. This account is a joint one with my mother so she can write the checks as the bills come: cell phone, the rare credit card bill, car insurance. I try to put $100 into it every week to keep it going. The last time I could do that was about a month or so ago.
The third is the actual money. The part I can see, touch. The part that takes me to movies and puts food in my stomach and gas in my car. After I pay my health insurance this month, and contribute to rob’s car insurance, and all that, I will have $173.51 in that account.
Sigh.
Breathe.
Done now.
