Instagram Made Me Quit My Job: The First Time

Have I read one too many inspirational Instagram posts? Did I quit my job because I read one too many inspirational Instagram posts that told me, I’m, you, we - are capable of anything?

I probably did.

So, I quit my job about two years ago to start my own business but I really ended up giving myself the bootleg gift of many hours of freedom to analyze my life wherein I’ve found myself on a very sober, very jacked up Dr. Seuss like journey to figuring out who I am without the confines of a well paying corporate job. The only thing I know right now for sure is that I sort of hate the word journey and beaches make me smile. I’ve also developed heartburn. The only thing I miss about corporate work is a healthy direct deposit paycheck that was on a two week schedule.  I was a whore for new sweaters, weekend brunch, wine, burgers and trips to Sephora whenever I wanted a new red lip. I cut my rent check without a worry and took a yearly two week solo vacation to disconnect, make out and have sex with foreign men. I saved some money, enough to buy myself  boobs and some freedom. Two years and 20k later I’ve come to discover that I’m a hot mess - a hot mess without a career that made my life appear neat and tidy on the outside. I’m sitting in my own self-discovery soup and most days it is not tasty. I wonder how long the last 18k of my savings will last? Will the soup get tasty?

I didn’t think this soul work would be easy but you know I thought it would be easier. Stupid girl.  I lost 160 lbs and have managed to keep off 152 of them for 18 years, so I thought I could do anything.  Advice has ranged from get a job that’s less stressful to go back to school and teach full time.  Some friends say to make a decision because I will have to at some point. The advice of friends is honest and true because I myself have clouded every possible creative thought I have with the urgency to make a decision because I have a financial freak out at least two times a month. I’ve told myself no more times than yes. I’ve spent two years stopping before I’ve started. I made progress with coaching, got scared and retreated. I’m standing in my own way. Word of advice, keep your emotions locked down unless you’re ready to get raw with yourself - ‘cause feeling all of your feelings is pretty miserable work and it doesn’t pay well at all. I don’t give a shit how many self-care Saturday’s I indulge in, bath bombs bought, women’s circles attended, movies watched, museums visited and hugs received - feeling through real feelings and sitting alone with them in your fully furnished apartment is the hardest work of life and it’s scary as fuck. The biggest mystery is that even as I sit here and write this, I know I’ll figure this out eventually. My broken brain will do it, no thanks to my helpless heart - but they’ll buck up to teamwork, put their back into it and do it. Don’t stop get it, get it. Ice cube, anyone? These past two years have been much more trying than the 10 years I wore socks to bed, even through the summer, because I thought snakes would get into my sheets in the middle of the night and - yes - I wholly believed socks would protect me from bedtime infiltrating snakes. I’m still a little dim, as dim as I was from 5-15. Yes, the sock thing went on that long. I believe love conquers all. Love with friends, love with a lover, all of the love conquers all of the shit.

Monday through Friday when I’m not cooking in someone’s home, giving food and mood advice or cooking in my own, plating meals, self-hating and then eating saltines with cream cheese as I stand in front of my kitchen counter listening to 95.5 PLJ, crying in synch to Natasha Bettingfield’s Unwritten, I’m writing a health newsletter that I’ve never sent out. I’ve been writing it for two years. I’ve taken short production gigs to pay my bills,  but from 8am-3pm, to make steady rent money, I substitute teach. Some days I find myself sitting alongside curious kindergarteners that make me smile as they blow snot on to the sleeves of my $15 Old Navy sweaters. Other days  I’m with 9 year olds who speak over my reading of American folk tales and ask to use the bathroom while I make semi-elaborate main idea charts and pass out graphic organizers. On the worst day, I’m with twelve year olds who generally ignore my existence even as I try - in the most heartfelt way - to find a way to relate and speak to them about life. I’ve been met with lines like “Why would you leave a good job to be a teacher?” “Didn’t you make more money before?” “How old are you anyway?" “You walk two miles to and from work each way and don’t drive? Don’t you think you need a scooter?” One Thursday afternoon I waited in the doorway of a classroom and heard one student say to another “If I have her, you must have the good sub.”

Fuck me.

Is this the freedom I asked for universe?  It’s all too close to home. I’ve gone back to the place where my tormented life originally began - school. I hated school. Sure, my days are more joyful in many ways. Like, for example, at least once a week I watch the same kid unwrap turkey bacon at lunch all while owning an expression of genuine surprise every time he opens the foil pack of turkey bacon and that is, I’m pretty sure, the definition of true joy. 

I spent 9+ years making calendars for creative people who refused to open them, emails never read, calls unanswered … I took a break … I’m now back in it … Money. Rent. NYC. You’ve got me by the tits. I stopped subbing to pay my bills, stopped health coaching to pay my bills and some days it doesn’t even feel like I’m going backwards. It feels like where I’m supposed to be. 

 I never experienced turkey bacon joy at five and what I’ve learned is that well adjusted five year olds also give zero fucks. Five year olds repeat themselves over and over and over again until you listen because what they have to say is the most important thing and you know what - it’s usually always enlightening. But me, I always cared too much, even at five.  Well adjusted five year olds are the most creatively fearless feeling bad-ass beings in the land. Sometimes I sit and stare at them, wanting to be as brave as they are with I love you’s and writing. I wish I could have been them at five. I wish I could be like them now. When I grow up, I want to be a five year old.

This morning I sit with the question of whether or not dream jobs really do exist. I’m subbing in my own life.. I’m temporary. Is this the end of the road? Am I writing Chapter 1 and already bound to tragedy? Are you worried about me yet? Maybe you give zero fucks? Maybe you’ll keep reading? Maybe you’ve felt the same way? Like your life isn’t your life, but you’re too scared to admit it because change is a bitch? It’s true, change is a bitch.

I always wanted to travel and write, not to be confused with a travel writer. I’m afraid I’m a shitty writer so I haven’t really tried to write because I have an English degree and half a hope that was squashed by a professor in college who told me my voice was too emotional and my sentences needed to be more complex. Is that how I can let my light shine on the world - by being a proud, overly emotional writer who pens poorly punctuated, incomplete sentences? I’ve been published once, it was a story about growing up wearing super tight belly busting girdles that held in my jiggly belly. Published three times if you count my high school literary journal and five if you count a friends independent magazine. I’ve never been paid to write the stuff that’s in my heart, only when I wrote menus and trivia questions for Lifetime Television. The Golden Girls and The Nanny were my material and I was thankful for it.

Also, “let my light shine on the world” is an abundant over exaggeration. I’m living this story as I write, so let’s see what happens. I mean, I’m gonna go back and fill in the nasty bits, but I have no idea what’s gonna happen. You’ll know as soon as I do. Right now I’m writing at my parents dining room table while Food Network buzzes in the background and my father is watching Italian videos on his phone. My brother is sitting next to my mom on the couch, he’s 43, physically disabled and lives with my parents. One day I know I’ll have to care for him, probably change my parents diapers and do his laundry all at the same time. It’s not going to be pretty, I know that’s also why I quit my life because I knew at some point my life likely wouldn’t be my own.

The only reason I’m even sitting here writing is because a friend recently sent me a text that read “I love you. When you don’t believe in yourself, I’ll love you twice as much. You are pure starshine. It’s not hard loving you. It’s hard convincing you you’re meant to be loved. But that’s something only you can do for yourself.”  The same friend also gave me a card that read “Writing is nothing more than a guided dream."

I don’t know what starshine is and I know I want to be loved, so I guess I’m gonna keep emo-shittily writing so I can find out.