Moving on, moving out
Or, “the push you need”
There’s something to be said about making the big decision to follow a passion and work for your own self. Namely, you must be either pathologically confident or blindly stupid, unless a profound inheritance is quickly coming your way. Welp, I’m never going to be independently wealthy and I’m not a particularly confident person. So.
Here’s my account of what it takes to let go of stability, to leap before you look, to be unabashedly foolish.
Some background on me. I’m not the sort who lets go of a familiar comfort in exchange for the unknown. I fear failure and I have little faith that “things will all work out in the end.” I’m not comfortable learning from my mistakes, and I have had more than enough shit nearly kill me in order to make myself stronger. In short, when it comes to self-prophesies, it’s all doom and gloom.
I never expected greatness from myself, or anything beyond a life of working retail in order to scrape by with a steady supply of whisky and cigarettes, really.
No one ever talked about life plans with me, or sat down to look at programs I should consider applying for. I never had a 2, or 5, or any -year plans. Nobody encouraged me to go out and be whatever I wanted to be, or supplied means to work towards my goals. Instead, I grew up working shitty jobs to afford the things I needed, hearing uplifting comments from my family about how life was nothing but working, suffering, and the sweet relief of dying.
As such, it was as amazing to me as it was to everyone else when I found myself working for a world class biological research institution at age 21.
Having been employed as a cashier, stocker, and barn hand for 10 years leading up to this point, it made about as much sense that I was allowed in that building as a meth head at the front desk in a dentist’s office. I couldn’t believe I was getting paid for something besides menial work, and it felt as if the entire world opened up into a vast expanse of new opportunities that I never even knew about before. Believe it or not, prior to this job I had no knowledge of advanced degrees or the research programs that went with them in tandem.
I was a fish out of water, and all the unfamiliar organisms around me were bred, raised, and well trained for this impressive life.
Flash forward six years later; through some hilarious prank on the universe I was now managing the entire laboratory.
I had more responsibility, freedom, and finances than I ever dreamed. It was a killer job, as far as working without any supervision and making up my own general duties goes. I was paid far more than I deserved and the demands of my job seemed to dissipate with each passing day as the laboratory members learned to take care of themselves. I was comfortable and cared for there.
But I was bored.
I was also seriously seeing someone at that time, and he was strongly considering a major move to Atlanta after finishing his coursework. He wanted me to come with. And I had options to weigh.
On one hand, I was doing well for myself at my current city and occupation, far better than the lifetime of retail hell I had always envisioned. Having a salary and benefits was beyond comprehension for an aimless, hopeless, doomed individual like myself. There was no guarantee that I’d ever find another position like that, or be able to fall so easily into a similar job if I managed to secure one. I almost certainly would never find another job where my bosses trusted me entirely and didn’t give a shit what I was up to all day. From the age of 24 I really had it made.
On the other hand, though, I felt no sense of fulfillment or excitement from my job anymore. I was morbidly depressed every single day before going to the office, and somehow even more depressed every night at the thought of getting up and doing it all over again. I felt no creative drive whatsoever and my art supplies had been untouched for literal years. My boredom with work was so prolific that it affected my sense of self-worth completely. I was restless, uninspired, and barely hanging on to a functional lifestyle for the five days a week when I needed to pull my shit together. Frankly, I would classify my weekends as entirely dysfunctional.
When it came down to it, as much as I hated what was going on with my unintentional career path, I was never going to leave my job unless I left my city. There was simply no reason to give up the cushy life; my doomsday brain was certain that nothing better was out there anyways.
This proposal to relocate with my boyfriend was the only potential change on my horizon, and which fork I would take between my two foreseeable paths was chaotically debated for months. I can say with certainty that I experienced my second quarter life crisis over this matter, and it took many months of coping with my decision to finally reach a point of acceptance.
As you have definitely already deduced, in the end, I went for it.
Many months later, with so much uncertainty about the likelihood of this venture ever becoming gainful, I continue to apply for shitty office jobs on a weekly basis. I daydream about having a salary and health insurance. But I don’t call back when I receive job interview offers.
Nowadays my fingers are too bruised and bloodied to crawl my way back into an office; I already felt the push, and I made the leap.
