Time enough for self/art

I have done awful things to preserve my freedom/time to myself/art time. Not visiting my mother enough when she was dying of cancer; not moving back to the parental home then, because my father would have made it impossible for me to leave. Even at twenty I knew instinctively what was most likely to happen and how to best avoid it. So, not for love….

What about money? Will I give up the time I have to myself now, that is sometimes used to make or learn art, or write or just think about things other than ‘work’ - time that doesn’t involve sharing with another human being. Time where I can do mostly, (work has been eating at this time a lot in the last few years), what I want. The bit of my life where I am ‘me’? Will I give that up for money, to be like and possibly more accepted by other human beings? To spend more of my life pretending?

My life is probably half over. I too may die of cancer before my time, and even if I never create that masterpiece or write that prize-winner, then I think I have to at least be able to say, in the words of the dead but immortal Frank, I did it my way.