On a particularly bad day last week, I looked into Talkspace (online therapy for people who listen to a lot of podcasts) and found out that their base pricing was $396 a month for 2 live video sessions and $196 for one live video session. I thought it was too expensive so I looked into competitors, and 7 Cups came up. It's $156 for a weekly free trial that said it included 2 video sessions and that seemed cheaper so I signed up, which required putting my debit card in. In the intro session the interviewer said that no, there are no live sessions (I guess I misread the most important part) so I cancelled it in the settings. I swear to god that I saw the $156.00 charge as a notification on my phone when I signed up for 7 Cups, but it's nowhere in my bank records nor in my Mint.com account. However, over the past week I got two $0.35 that I know is from them. Maybe it's crazy, but it's really stressful. Fuck, if I just wanted someone to talk to, I should just find a a cam girl. We need strippers for emotional labor. =============== The reality of my situation is finally becoming apparent to me. I never really adulted. Conversations with my parents are awkward. They don't know that I left my job yet. I've been waking up early to go to a cafe in town and working on freelance stuff that fuck I'm too anxious to ask for payment for. And that's on a good day- I have other rabbit holes I can fall into, including crafting the perfect hubski comment or playing chess or working on a personal web design project or fuck if I know. Every now and then I remember that Brittney Spears is under conservatorship and can't make major or financial decisions on her own. I'd kill to be Brittney Spears, I mutter to myself, at the cafe. I don't care if anyone heard me. =============== My ex is back in town. We're complimentary crazy and aloof, they're changing their name and gender and I can't help but wonder if they're doing so to make it harder to write about them. It's a red flag that my hanging out with them needs to be hidden from their current boyfriend, among other things. I am anticipating that any sane person is going to tell me cut things off with them, but we are liars to our families and to our friends and ourselves, so we tether the truth for each other. It's not really beneficial to cut off things with them right now.
I like this cafe though, I don't want to ruin that. Joking aside, I'm really discouraged about structure, but the agency job I had was difficult for me mostly because I had 13 different clients. I'll try it, the one barista job I had was one of the best times I had in my life. Before I do that, I currently have a $6000 invoice that I am terrified of writing. I don't feel like I deserve the money, and I am not in a good place today.
Here's what I did: I billed in advance. Seriously. It takes all the pain out of billing. It reinforced proper project scoping and developing meaningful and tangible deliverables. And, most importantly, the people who agree to work this way are COMMITTED to the work. They are responsive, engaged, and get you answers to your questions right away. Best of all? It increased my workload. I lost a few clients, sure. But they were quickly replaced by others who respected me, and valued my work. My finger hovered over the "Publish" button that night, let me tell you! I don't think I slept a wink after I pushed the changes out to my web server, and proclaimed to the world that they had to PAY ME FIRST before I'd work with them. No freebies. No free consultations. Just demonstrably good work in my online portfolio, and the price list. Bam. That's it. It was scary, but it was effective.