The waiter at the Rochester-area Cracker Barrel® had brought our drinks and was ready to take our order when I reached for a straw and knocked over my Coke.® A passing waitress who had already stopped by to chat about my Dad’s yellow measuring-tape suspenders, used a napkin-wrapped set of silverware to deftly corral the liquid onto her serving tray while the waiter retrieved a stack of napkins to finish the job. Nobody made any snide remarks, but the incident provided me with a jarring snapshot of myself from an outsider’s perspective: a 44-year-old man with above-average intelligence and no marked disability living with and dependent upon his retired parents and still liable occasionally to knock over his drink in a restaurant.

Usually, whenever my semblance to a much-younger child occurs to me I comfort myself that I don’t actually live in my parents’ basement. I live in my sister’s old bedroom, at least in part because my parents’ basement is unfinished, with a dirt floor, stone walls and a heavily spider-webbed ceiling, and also because my old bedroom was converted years ago into my mother’s office. Granted, this is a rather fine distinction, but I also remind myself of everything I’ve accomplished in the three years since I moved back home: a book called Love’s Anarchy, ebook versions of that and my two previously published books, a website of my own design (ebook and web design both requiring that I learn the underlying (albeit similar) technologies), continued work on my novel, and an actual paid ghostwriting gig that’s substantially finished, not to mention the several works of fiction I’ve edited as the volunteer fiction editor for WordFarm. In other words, not only am I not living in my parents’ basement, I’m also not devoting all of my time to video games. See the difference?

However.

My sister just moved back to town (mildly interesting side note–the Hampshire part of New Hampshire means home town). She’s a newly single mom of two school-age kids who has already procured a nearly full-time job and is contemplating additional part-time work in order to make ends meet. I’m pretty sure she’s not trying to make me feel bad, but she kinda can’t help it. She’s matured into a responsible and competent grown-up (without losing her sense of fun), and she puts me to shame.

I applied for a slew of jobs when I first arrived but never received so much as a call-back in response. In the back of my head at the time I kept hearing a voice say, “You already have a job.” Eventually I decided the voice belonged to God and stopped seeking further employment. I have not been God’s most diligent worker, but I have, as outlined above, managed to get a few things accomplished.

I’ll be making (God willing) $5,000 this year. All of that money comes from the ghostwriting gig, $2,500 of which I’ve already received (and spent). I’m in a Rochester-area Cracker Barrel® tagging along with my class-reunion-bound parents because the living soul for whom I’m ghosting is also in Cleveland (etymology: land of cliffs; also: land of my birth and place of my parents’ meeting (not necessarily in that order)).

I’m hoping to get paid this month because at month’s end is due my first full payment of $350 for my repossessed truck, toward which I’ve been paying $50 a month for the past year. Oh, and did I forget to mention that $2,050 of the $5,000 is slated for my sister, to repay a debt incurred when she was slightly more flush with cash a couple years ago? She received half of it when I got the first half-payment, and will receive the balance when I get the rest, which will leave me with $1,500 to see me through the unforeseeable future.

The balance due on my truck is about $6,800. Aside from that, my monthly bills amount to a $70 cell phone bill for my iPhone (upon which I’m writing this post from a hotel room at 3:30 am while my parents sleep) and a shade over $100 monthly credit card bill (balance: ~$5,400).

I love my writing life. LOVE it. It’s just, it’s easier to believe I’m “trusting in God’s provision” when that provision isn’t starkly revealed to be a child’s dependence on his literal parents and contrasted with his sister’s self-reliance. The possibility that my writing may someday become a sufficient source of income is a nice pipe dream, but that day will never arrive until I … well, realistically I should put a period after “arrive.” On the other hand, there’s the $5K from Cleveland and the odd $20 or $30 that occasionally arrives from Amazon and Barnes & Noble. Also, at this point, even though there’s plenty more writing I’d like to do, procuring a more conventional job would hardly preclude my existing work from becoming suddenly profitable.

I’m in a hotel room. What better place to explore my feeling of being halfway between where I’ve been and where I’m trying to go from here?