Just Like Vertical Horizon, I'm Still Here

Hello, and thank you for not leaving during the intermission.

So, I know I've been MIA for about ... oh, three months ... but I promise my hiatus has come to an end.

Here's what you missed during the break ...

-I turned 27 earlier this month.

-I wrote and copy edited. A lot.

-I've spent an infuriating amount of time tracking down payments from people who have "forgotten" to pay me or have "lost" my invoices.

-I took a weeklong trip to Hong Kong in March.

-I finally had a freelance month in which my gross earnings matched my former full-time monthly salary at the magazine (where I worked survived between 2008 and 2010). I'm singing the "Hallelujah" chorus right now as I type this, because that is seriously a HUGE achievement for me.

-I took a beginner's ballet class at my local community college this past spring semester.

-I began training to become a fitness instructor. (Not as a personal trainer; I'm being trained in a specific method, it's a kind of ballet barre/Pilates/yoga technique. If all goes well, I'll be teaching classes by the end of summer.)

-I joined the Arizona Chapter of Fashion Group International.

-I kicked my professional website/portfolio into high gear -- because man, that corner of the web needed organizing in a big, big way.

-And did I already mention I did a lot of writing and copy editing?

Next week it will have been one year ago exactly that I walked through the doors of the magazine for the last time (OK, so I've been back a few times to visit former co-workers since then, but those don't count) and officially began my freelance career. So what have I thought of the ride so far?

It's sucked.

Just kidding. It's actually been so rewarding that even though opportunities to apply for other full-time, in-house writing and editing positions have come along (and some of them have even been miiighty tempting) in the past 12 months, I've ultimately shrugged them all off. The truth is, once you become your own boss and see what that kind of life can be like, the idea of going back to a 9-to-5-er seems ridiculous.

Not to say this has been a picnic. And I think my boyfriend has probably forgotten what I look like without my laptop.

But, the need to occasionally detach from work is what drove me to get out of the house and take my ballet class a few times a week, plus go to classes at the fitness studio. Actually, I got so hooked on the fitness classes that the owner invited me to become an instructor. So now once a week I attend a workshop for about an hour and a half, in addition to taking three classes per week so that I don't lose my form. I'm also required to observe the instructors in a minimum of 10 classes, then I help with correcting clients for a minimum of eight classes, and then voila! I'll be telling people to get down and give me 20. Just kidding. We don't do that at the studio. We ask much more politely. And we do yoga pushups. Not military pushups. Actually, that's a lie. We do both. But still, we do ask much more politely.

OK, that's all for now. More tales from a writing and copy editing fitness instructor and knitter later.

Promise!