What Do You Do?

Can't wait until what I do pays me as much as whatever she does. 

This week's burning question deals with the one question that I feared being asked at cocktail parties, events, dinners, pretty much wherever I could meet new people. That was until a certain guy I know told me to stop glossing over the things I have done and start saying with confidence what it is that I do.  I literally remember being at an art thing in a circle of PhD's and MDs and when they asked what it was that I do and I shrugged and mentioned something about being a Jack-of-all trades and a master of none. Everyone laughed and then someone said, "Really, what do you do?" Before I could answer my ex swooped in and said she's an amazing writer. That really meant a lot to me, but it didn't change my habit. It took years of having other people introduce me as "an amazing writer," "the cutest young writer in town," "my favorite fashion writer," and simply a writer for me to stop saying I work in retail or whatever crappy 9-5 I was doing to pay my bills while I freelance. It may have taken years of affirmations, people seeing in me what I could never see in myself and me accepting my greatness for me to stand up and say "I am a fashion and lifestyle writer who has tons of experience online and is working her way into print one mag at a time," when asked what do you do but I have finally come to a place where I am proud of me.  Now when I tell people what I do they don't laugh, they kinda think it's cool. If only I could stop telling them it's not cool and that writers are usually poor until they aren't. One limiting belief at a time.