This week has been as good a reminder as any as to why I keep my day job. It has insurance. My mother has pounded into me the importance of insurance since I was a teenager. She repeatedly told me that having insurance indicated a certain quality of life. It indicated a standard of living that I was expected to meet as an adult. I think I understand this lesson in its entirety now. It’s a little more than a month before the wedding and it seems I will have to have surgery soon. At this point it’s not a life threatening issue but left untreated it would be. It seems my appendix has terrible timing. This is going to be costly. But it would cost a lot more without insurance. I’m very lucky. One of the only perks that come along with my day job is fully paid insurance. I am grateful for this. I also have a reliable source of income and for this I am grateful, too. I have a day job so that I can support myself and so that I can do all of the things I want to do. Writing is one of those things but the list is much larger than that. For example I like to live comfortably and I like to go out to dinner and see a movie. The list goes on and on. I’m not a great writer…yet. I could not support myself with my own writing. Not in the way I choose for myself. So I keep my day job and my insurance and I write when I have time. It’s not a bad trade off. If I had no health insurance I might not be around to write at all. It’s not easy but every once in a while the Universe sends us a reminder of why we do what we do instead of quitting to become bohemian artists and writers. So good luck to all of us who choose to keep our day jobs.KD