Surplus

Ever since I decided to restart a music career, I've been poor. This is no exaggeration. I had to move out of the house that my ex and I had been renting and move into a small basement apartment. The rent was low, and utilities were included. Even so, I was sometimes late on my rent. Fortunately, I had a terrific landlady who was understanding. (She is a musician, and both her son and daughter are musicians, so she was sympathetic.) I've been able to pay my bills, but sometimes my checking account was literally in the single digits when the smoke cleared.

Lately, it seems that I've turned a corner. For the past three months, I've had money left over after paying my monthly bills and rent for my new apartment. Maybe I don't have enough left over to buy a house or that yacht that I've had my eye on, but I'm not so worried about the next round of bills. As a matter of fact, I've voluntarily added a new bill to the pile: health insurance! I can finally afford health insurance!

There hasn't been any one project that has taken off. Instead, everything has been improving little by little. The gigs have been coming steadily since last November. My student roster has been slowly growing. My church job is only quarter time, but having a steady check has helped immensely, and there seems to be some support for increasing my hours at the start of the next church year.

I'm not setting the world on fire, but I have a few burners going. As long as I'm earning enough to be comfortable doing what I love, that's good enough for me.