When I worked in an office, I had colleagues. Coworkers. I had people I reported to and people with whom I collaborated and people who reported to me. There were good things about this and not-so-good things, and one of the things I enjoy about freelancing is that I more or less get to stand on my own merit in this job.

Let’s face it: everyone’s had a crazy boss or an offensive coworker or some other incarnation of a difficult office relationship, right? For me, the downside of losing regular social interaction and project help was vastly outweighed by removing the variables of Other People’s Stupid from my daily work life.

Now, for the most part, I get to pick my colleagues. And my work is diversified enough that if I find myself in a bad situation with someone—they are not as competent as I’d originally thought, or just grate on my nerves or whatever—I can extract myself from gigs if I don’t want to work with a particular individual and it doesn’t put me in a difficult spot. (I don’t know about you, but when I worked office jobs, I didn’t really have the freedom to just up and quit every time someone annoyed me.)
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[This image courtesy of Shenkitup.com, and isn't actually a picture of me. But it may as well be.]

I am, as many writers are, an introvert. But I also, as many such writers do, integrate a fair amount of being-in-public-as-part-of-work types of activities into my schedule. So I can certainly put on my Public Face (and/or my big girl panties) and interact with strangers in socially acceptable ways. It may not be the most natural thing in the world for me, but I’ve had a lot of practice and when I head to a conference, for example, I know how to balance my experience so that I have enough time to recharge and can be my best self in public.

Recently I was going about my day—actually I was at physical therapy—and someone recognized me from my personal blog. It turned out to be kind of a funny encounter, and the woman who approached me was lovely, but (as I ended up sharing on the blog) I felt very awkward at first. It caught me off guard, being recognized locally, while doing nothing more than just going about my mundane life.

And then I felt like a giant cliche.
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Part of the reason I wanted to freelance instead of working a “regular” job was so that I could be more available for my kids, and my schedule more flexible. So it’s at times like this I remind myself that this is exactly what I wanted.

See, right now I’m in a cabin. In the mountains. With my son’s school! Or, at least, many of the children from my son’s school. Many lovely, delightful, oh-my-gosh-so-very-loud children from my son’s school. We are on an extended field trip and I’m sure it’s going to be lots of fun… even if I cannot hear myself think, at the moment.

But it’s okay, because I have my computer, and my wireless modem, and even though I’m theoretically helping to shepherd way too many kids as they run around in circles and scream at the top of their lungs (I’m sure it’s educational, somehow), I’m also managing to sneak away to do a little bit of work.
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When I first started blogging—you know, back when dinosaurs roamed the earth (haha)—marketing and PR professionals were seen as visionaries if they bothered pitching to bloggers or approaching them at all. I’m rounding the corner to my ninth year of a public online existence; that’s, like, a century in Internet years, or something. Back in the beginning, no one noticed me. And then, for a while, I would get maybe one weird email a month, then one a week, and I remember thinking it was becoming A Thing when I started getting one or two a day.

If you’re doubled over with laughter, reading that, it’s okay. I understand. Nowadays—between the couple of email addresses I use most frequently—it’s not unusual for me to receive upwards of 200-300 emails per day which I consider spam, and that’s just the ones that aren’t caught by the spam filter. There’s probably 50-100 emails each day which I truly care about, too. And then blog comments (all of which arrive as emails from WordPress). My point is, I get a lot of email.

And? My mother raised me to be polite. So ever-increasingly, I find myself in somewhat of a conundrum, stuck between what I consider acceptable behavior and the constraints of time, reality, and trying to have a life.
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