Page 5 of All Our Nevers

“There are lots of benefits for my career.” My tone doesn’t sound defensive at all. “I have a whole five-year plan I’m sticking to, and events are a big part of that. It’s good cross-exposure with other influencers and—whatever, just trust me. I have to do stuff like this if I want my career to advance the way it needs to.”

“How… do you want to advance your career?” she asks, one hand fidgeting in the cotton of her dress.

“What do you mean?”

“I just mean that you seem to have a real rhythm down with the social media income, and then you have your fiber art stuff on the side… From the outside it seems like you’re doing great, but do you wish you were doing something differently? Or do you just want to make more money? I’m not questioning your judgement. You know I would never do that. I just want to make sure you like what you’re doing.”

It’s almost a fair question.

Do I like what I’m doing?

Well… do I?

The question lingers in the back of my mind for the rest of the event, then on our shared T ride home; Red Line to Park Street, Green Line into the Allston neighborhood, Sophie getting off two stops before me. I’m still thinking about it as I press my rusted key into my front door, employing the old jiggle-twist maneuver until it creaks open onto my studio apartment.

Do I like what I’m doing?

Do I like where I am?

I look around the single room of my apartment like it might answer the question for me.

When I first rented this place, about two years ago now, it felt Exciting and Adult. I’d never lived on my own before—having lived with my parents and brother for eighteen years, then with Sophie in college for four years, then with Sophie out of college for four years before she moved in with her piece-of-shit boyfriend at the time. I hated that guy and hated them together, but it still felt like a great chance to finally be independent.

I fantasized about having complete control over the color of the furniture and the scent of the candles and the art on the walls. And I would definitely not leave any plates on the table or in the sink because I’m not disgusting. But other days maybe I would leave plates on the table or in the sink because it’s really not so bad. And it would be gloriously and exclusively up to me when it was disgusting and when it was really not so bad.

Somehow, in the intervening years, what was once Exciting and Adult started to feel a bit Small and Sad.

The mosaic lamp made by a friend-of-a-friend is beautiful, but its three-pronged cord is plugged into a two-pronged outlet with a dollar-store adaptor in between, and consequently can only be on for about thirty minutes before the fuse blows and I have to brave the damp, dingy stockpile of cardboard boxes and forgotten bicycles that is my building’s basement, fumbling in the dark for the breaker panel. The colorful fridge magnets are chipped, backings affixed and re-affixed with superglue, holding up photographs that have started to fade in the striped sunrays of my crooked blinds in late afternoon. Even my art table—my long, beautiful, wooden art table—is now splintering along the sides, piled with a half-year’s worth of half-completed projects. A requiem to lost momentum.

All of it is, really.

I don’t consider myself particularly naive or idealistic. But even so, sometimes I fantasize about making it. Having enough financial stability from my art to afford a one-bedroom apartment, or even a bigger studio where I’m one-hundred-percent sure there are no silverfish in the walls. Being able to buy fabric from the fabric store instead of repurposing thrifted clothes. Shopping at Trader Joe’s instead of Market Basket, and maybe even buying those fancy flavored hummuses they sell—the beet one and the pine nut one and the weird dessert ones, too.

Not that I need help or anything. I’m fine with the way things are. If I was that financially hard up, I could stop squandering money at bars every weekend. But you won’t see me doing that, so it’s all a trade-off. Everything is. Spend money or save money. Make good money or make good art. I’ve chosen to walk the middle line on all of it, and it’s served me just fine so far.

Half the time, I make art the way I want to—all fiber art, mostly crochet, some embroidery, lots of portraiture and really aggressively feminist artist statements—and half the time I post semi-artsy, semi-slutty, semi-educational content on social media and get ad money for it.

Is it the most fulfilling way to spend my time? No. Could I make my rent payments without it? Also no.

But my calendar and budget are rigidly set: defined proportions of artistic work and content creation from which I never, ever deviate. Because when I break from my plan, that’s when I get in trouble. Rent is late, deals fall through, people lie and manipulate and hurt you any way they know how. So I’ve learned to control the things I can, and shove everything else the fuck out of my way.

But does that mean it’s too late to change the road I’m on, if I wanted to?

I’m wrapped in a cloud of this personal and professional ennui when my favorite creature on Earth nuzzles my shin. I bend to give him a proper hello.

“Ciao, mio caro.”

Archie’s wet, scrumply bulldog face fits perfectly in my cupped hands. I kiss the top of his head one, two, three, four times, then ask, “Devi andare in bagno?” which I’m honestly not sure is the way any real Italian person would ask a dog if they want to go out, but my second- and third-generation Italian American family members have always played fast and loose with our mother tongue. I should ask Nonna what it really is sometime.

Archie responds to my question by lying flat on the floor, legs splayed out in a chubby brown X—his way of saying “no” to the walk. Lazy mutt.

I put my handbag and shoes neatly away in the closet—there’s simply not enough room to be messy about it—and look upon my kingdom once more.

The rug could use a wash, and I should try again to convince my landlord I need working blinds. The laundry bin is pretty full, and there’s a pile of half-finished sewing projects next to my sewing machine.

And do I even like what I’m doing?

I’m starting to realize the answer might be… no.