New life. New Home. New Chapter.
50 days ago I quit my job.
50 days ago I closed one chapter to open another.
50 days ago I moved to San Francisco, California.
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My boss was sitting across from me. She had a list of every single thing I'd done wrong in the past 3 months. None were big mistakes, in fact most were insignificantly small, but to her this was huge. This meant a lot. "Are you happy?", "no", "it shows". I would have reacted further but the anti anxiety medication had rendered me virtually emotionless. In my head I thought "what a terrible response to me stating I'm not happy". She would proceed to rattle off my list of mistakes one by one, "in june you didn't do this, one time in july you forgot to do that".....at one point I tried interjecting "yes, all of us did", but she just kept talking. I realized then that the root of this conversation had little to do with performance and everything to do with attitude. It's like that game kids play, "what here doesn't belong" - it was me, and I knew it. I had started acting out like a bad teenager, I knew my performance wasn't where it should be, I knew the mistakes I was making were trivial and a result of lack of interest. Everyone on the team was unhappy, I was just the one showing it. At my midyear review my boss (finally) asked how I was doing with the transition to Ohio, I answered honestly that it had been very challenging, she looked at me and said "well at least you kept doing yoga and didn't gain a bunch of weight like I did". I just looked at her. I realized that was the end of discussing how I was doing. I was always told there was a goal but never what that goal was.
When I moved to Ohio I knew it would be temporary. I ended up trying to move almost the second I arrived. But they had paid to move me, they had paid a lot, a lot that I had already spent and could in no way pay back. I had spent the year prior trying to escape my life in Dallas, escape my breakup and in doing so had racked up quite a bit of debt - turns out the only people who benefit from a YOLO lifestyle are credit card companies. Last December as I sat at the airport having missed my flight back to Ohio - the only time I've ever missed a flight, I realized it was time to face the music. I sat down one night and created an excel spreadsheet of everything I owed, including interest rates. I figured out how much I'd have to pay off each month so that at my one year mark I could leave. With my new plan I wasnt going to be able to leave every weekend like I wanted too, no I was going to have to put in my time. I marked the calendar for my one year date. I would look at it and think "I"ll never make this, I cannot do this" and then I'd remind myself leaving actually wasn't an option. If I wanted out I was going to have to put in the work, my YOLO lifestyle was over. I stayed in, I wrote, I reconnected with old friends, I did yoga. I still traveled but I'm fortunate that some trips were paid for by friends, some by my mom, and the others I looked for cheap tickets. I saved money by rarely going out. I joked I was an indentured servant to the state of Ohio, but really I was an indentured servant to my old life. In order to create a new one, I had to free myself of the old one.
As my one year date approached I had no job prospects and no real idea of exactly where to go next. I decided I would stay. I decided I would try and make it another 6 months. I would endure another winter. My friends and family were shocked, but I explained that I could use the money I was making to save and travel and it would all be okay. I repeated this a lot....I had to convince myself. The moment came to resign my lease, I agreed, I ignored the knot in my stomach - this was the right choice. Right? Maybe? Shit. I don't know. Yes.......
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As I sat there looking at my boss's printed sheet of mistakes I had made, a sheet that months earlier would have made me want to lunge at her, but that day just further made me recess into the backgrounds of my already emotionless self, I realized one thing: I no longer fucking cared. I walked out and a coworker immediately asked me how it went, I told her - stone faced. She got riled up "omg that's bullshit, I can't believe she'd say those things to you, we all do that, why is she singling you out.....". I didn't want to complain about it anymore, I didn't want to spend hours waxing on and on about my hatred for my job, I didn't want to waste more energy on something that was providing zero value to my life. I quite simply did not want to do any of it, anymore.
That weekend I had a planned trip to Oklahoma. On the plane ride I obsessively went over and over the plan I had made months earlier. Could I do this? Was now the moment? I looked at the list I had made of the things I wanted when I got another job: Ocean, talking to people, windows and being outside. In February I'd visited San Francisco and called a friend to say I needed to live there....it was a feeling, a gut instinct (althought completely said in jest). But there, during a two hour flight to Oklahoma City, I turned my flippant statement into a reality and made the decision.
There was one yoga retail company I'd always wanted to work for. I found an opening online - I applied. I called. I emailed. I had friends who worked there do the same. I left no stone unturned and my made my intentions known - I fucking wanted this. The process took weeks. I told only a couple of people. I kept showing up everyday, having weekly touchbase meetings with my boss, acquiescing and falling in line as a good little employee should. One night as things were dragging on I laid in bed crying, I looked up and said "if this isn't for me, if San Francisco isn't my path, then that's okay, but I need to know right now so I can just move along". The next day I found out I got the job.
Patience. Tenacity. Endurance. Forgivness. More patience. These are the things I needed. These are the things I had to have. I made choices that led me to Ohio. I made choices that made me have to stay in Ohio. Happiness for me wasn't an accident, it wasn't a circumstance and it wasn't something that was given to me. Happiness was something I earned, it was something I achieved, it was something I chose.
Timing is everything and as much as I would have liked this story to be a quick one, "one day I said fuck it I'm out!", I would have missed so much if it were. I had to stop. I had to think. I had to figure out what my authentic life looked like....and then I had to wait.
50 days ago I quit my job.
50 days ago I moved to San Francisco, California.
50 days ago for the first time I moved towards something, instead of away from it.
Patience. Tenacity. Endurance. Forgiveness. Patience. Tenacity. Endurance. Forgiveness.
No more looking at lists of my mistakes, now I get to look at lists of my goals.
Goodbye to my old life, for now I'm off to create my new one.....