My eye won't stop twitching

My eye has been twitching pretty much non-stop for the last three days. Okay, well maybe not my eye exactly, but the little muscle just underneath my left eye. It's gotten beyond annoying. When I asked my friends if they knew of any remedies, the only response I got was that a twitch is usually a sign of stress or anxiety. And my first thought was, "What do I have to be anxious about?"

One thing I've learned about myself over the last 30-some years is that my body is pretty good at letting me know when something's up for me emotionally. For example, when I was teaching college, the morning of my first class of the term my stomach would be in knots and I'd spend a bit of time in the bathroom with diarrhea. "Shitty puppy syndrome" is what I called it. You know, when the puppy is all scared or nervous and shits all over the floor? Only thankfully, in my case, it wasn't all over the floor.

It's a little bit embarrassing, actually, that my body has to tell me that I'm nervous or stressed out or happy or whatever. I mean, shouldn't I be aware of these emotions? Evidently not.

So back to that question: What do I have to be anxious about? 

Hm. Well let's see. I gave up a steady paycheck to strike out on my own with only enough money in savings to get me through a few months. Last month I made a whopping $174 before taxes ($113 after, since I'm now paying my own employment tax), and so far this month I've only made $64 (before taxes), and that's from books I sold way back in August. I only sold one book last month, and I haven't written anything saleable since I quit my job. I have a lot of promising leads, but very few paying clients. I only have 320 followers on Twitter, despite the massive amount of time I've spent on there in the last month and a half. I have a roommate with whom I get along really well, but he's looking for his own place and I have no idea what I'm going to do when he leaves. (The idea of living with a stranger = unappealing, but potentially necessary.) And I need to figure out how I'm going to start making $2,500 a month by February.

So yeah. My eye is twitching.

But I do want to say that, despite all the uncertainty and self-imposed pressure, I have no regrets about what I've done. I'm eating better and getting more exercise. I get to spend all day with my cute little dog, Milton. I get to work from my desk or the dining room table or the couch or my bed. And I may be working 14-16 hours a day, seven days a week, but a lot of what I'm doing right now doesn't feel like work, meaning it's stuff I actually want to do. I also have a wonderful, supportive group of friends, family and ex-coworkers who provide free advice, encouragement and referrals.

And I'm meeting new people all the time--whether through social media or at networking events like Friday night's Supportland party--who are perfectly willing to lend whatever support they can: free advice, referrals, testimony, a sense of community, and sometimes even their business. The kindness of strangers. I didn't expect it, but I'm so grateful that it's there.