Ive been off, re: furniture and time

I’ve been quite a bit off, lately.

My sleep has been off, my performance has been off, my appetite … well, I still have most of an appetite, but not at the normal times…

“We” started work on building furniture this week. I have been looking forward to this for so long that I thought it would make me feel good, not bad. But in recent weeks, and then in the actual getting started when it crystalized, it became more and more clear that it was not going to be what I had expected. I had thought… I had been told (or thought I had been told) … and had been telling people … that my father and I would be building furniture together. That I would be working with my father, learning from him how to do it, and producing furniture at his side. But that was apparently never his idea.

My father wants me to do one kind of furniture while he does something entirely different. He doesn’t want to work with me, he doesn’t want to help me, and in fact doesn’t even want to work on the same STYLE of furniture as I am required to do. I say required, because whereas he appreciates and enjoys and understands and easily envisions furniture in the style he is requiring me to do, he is not doing it. And whereas I appreciate and enjoy and understand and have been coming to be able to envision furniture in a style approaching what he will be doing himself, I am not allowed to do that kind of furniture. There are no two ways about it, this is what I have to do. If I do not get this furniture made and sold at a steady rate, I will be in serious personal financial straits.

Which is pretty annoying, since until three days ago, I had no idea that I would be totally on my own in getting it done. I had thought that we would be working together, both creating furniture all day, several days a week. I had thought that there would be some sort of … structure or guidance … coming from him. I was mistaken. He expects me to do the whole thing myself, as though it were my own small business and I were my own boss, accountable only to myself, making my own hours, etc… etc… which is an entirely different mindset from … well, from every single day of my life since I moved to Pine. And until he moved here, really was not even close to an option. Now it is… but I am not prepared for it. It is too sudden.

Now, out of the blue, I have control over my own schedule. Not just when and whether I work, but when I wake and sleep, which I basically haven’t had all last year. There is no one telling me what to do, or how to do it, or when to have it done by, or even when to work on it. In fact, because of all the other things I knew need to get done this month, I was not expecting to even be introduced to furniture building until near the end of the month. So even if I had had a clue that I would have to “be my own boss” and had been mentally preparing myself for such a massive shift, I would still not be prepared for it at this time.

And to a certain extent, this is what is throwing me off. This is what is keeping me awake at night and in bed all day (I didn’t get out of bed until 1:33PM today). I am used to being told what to do and when to get up and when to go to sleep and when to eat and drink and what to eat and drink and when to go to the bathroom and all that. Not that I want to be told what do do, but that it is what I am used to.

So now I am figuring out what is going on; the idea of a father/son furniture building experience was all a lie or misunderstanding and it is up to me to create and make successful my own, seemingly independant furniture building business.

So tonight I will try taking a sleeping pill … early … and see if I can get myself to wake up tomorrow in the morning … and work myself all day (how does eight hours sound?) on what I know how to do to try to build this God Damned furniture. And then this weekend, theoretically, since my brother will be here all day, and since he is the only person in the world who is supposed to be working with me on the furniture, maybe I’ll have some company as I try to repeat the same thing, two more long days of work, with only myself for guidance. I am not opposed to work; this is me trying to make a plan for myself to follow – this is me the “boss” scheduling me the “employee” to work all day for several days. Sigh.

I’m not feeling too well.

Worse, there’s this shadow hanging over any plans I try to make … that some other responsibility (generated by my father and having nothing to do with making money) will suddenly take over the time I have just tried to set aside for work. Because really, my time is not my own.

(Which is why it never occurred to me that I might have to try to take ownership of getting the furniture built or of scheduling time to do so; neither my father nor my grandfather believe that my time is my own – it is valueless, and thus whenever they need or want something to be done, regardless of what I am doing, it is their right to monopolize my time. Sigh.)

I’m going to go see about a light breakfast.