Art versus The Real World

Writing this makes me feel so cliched....It's an age-old problem of art versus getting a 'proper' job which has never reached a solution. I have been on this planet for almost 30 years and yet I am still stumped as to whether there is a happy medium for being happy and modestly well-off. I dont think this exists. I don't believe in the middle classes.

I was raised in a well-to-do family- middle class bordering on upper I suppose. I had jobs from the age of 16. Spending my earnings on clothes and records mostly. I was proud - I felt self-sufficient and I sailed through academia. On the surface I was a model child in a model family. If only things had stayed that way...

I remember a friend of mine sending me an article a few years ago when I was in my first job since graduating. The title screamed something about mid-life crises hitting people in their mid-20s and not like in their 40s as before. Our lives now were bigger, better and faster than the yuppie generation of the 80s and hence we burnt out and crashed out much earlier than they did.

My friend was sent the article by his dad who was livid that he dropped out of law school to pursue a career in media. As for me, I was happily perched in what was my chosen career and so I read the article thinking of my friend but never once related it to myself.

2 and a half years later the unthinkable happened - being badly bullied at work and realising that I had spent all my time studying for a career which was money obsessed sent me into dark depression. The young city prodigy was earning more than her father now but was suicidal.

What happened next? I started a band. I pursued the teenage dream which I had try to ignore for so many years. I worked harder for this than I have for any exam I've ever sat in my life. I achieved success in a relatively short amount of time and reeled of all the idols I never thought I would meet in the space of a lifetime let alone in the space of a year...Everything was perfect...or so it seemed.

Then the frantic sleepless nights began...Worrying about money and bills 24 hours a day. As accumulation of debt began to build, my dreams began to tumble. At what cost was I pursuing this dream? Why did my dream not boost my reality?

I sit here after yet another sleepless night and counting down the hours before the next one begins. I've been looking for jobs - part-time menial work that won't even be worth my time or energy versus high-flying city jobs which will destroy all my time but will theoretically help pay me bills.

PLEASE.
SOMEONE.

Tell me there is a middle way. A way I can be happy and not have to keep thinking of escape routes out of my life....