When does bailing become the right thing to do?

I'm running scared from myself. I want to press the ejector button and know it would be a Bad Thing.

I've been a tutor for years: it is going well, I make money from it and it's as steady and stable as it can be, considering it's not a proper job. And yet, I want to ditch it and do the writing full-time. This is madness!

I am self-aware enough to know it is folly. I make money from the writing, it gets better month on month, I am always writing something and have not really stopped once this year. And yet, it doesn't bring in the same money as the tuition.

Logic, common-sense, responsibilities; they are all crowding in, like well-meaning friends, telling me what I should do. I know what I should do! But do you know what I feel like doing? Pulling the plug on it all and writing, that's what.

If I'm honest, this has been brewing on and off since the start of last year, so, come Christmas, I will have had two years of fighting with myself - and I wasn't even writing back then. When I first felt this way, I didn't even have a back-up plan, I just wanted out. Now, I do have a back-up plan, so you can see why there is much more temptation to bail.

There is a part of me that thinks it is not bailing, though, but following the right direction at last. Everything I do now is working towards writing full-time, without any other jobs getting in the way. It is a matter of time, but, as many of you know, impatience is an aspie quality of great influence.

I want it nowwwwwww, I cry, just like a little girl at the tombola. Why can't I have it now? I've waited and waited, like a good girl. I've done all my jobs and cleared up after myself, why can I not have this now? Why do I always have to wait?

And then, at the back of my mind, I remember all the times I have been my own worst enemy. Doing the writing full-time is not self-sabotage in the same way as walking out of a job with nothing to replace it, but it is a close second.

I know the logical answer is to carry on as I am until I can afford to leave the tuition. But really, how much does that figure when you have feelings driving you? Their voices are louder and more demanding, but also sweeter and know exactly what to say to make you do what you - and they - want you to do.

I am hoping to resist myself and my hopeless impulses. Just a little longer, I think, just over that bump in the road. Keep going, do not look back, do not listen to the happy voices. Ignore it all and behave like a grown-up. That's right, a little further and we'll be all right.

Amanda

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