Just before 4:30 on Friday, I left my afternoon meeting and got into my car. I drove a few blocks and then pulled over to an empty parking spot on the side of the road, pulled out my BlackBerry, and wrote my resignation.
And hit send.
As of November 19, I will no longer be employed at the organization I have worked at for almost six years. I will no longer be employed at all, in fact.
The truth is this causes me a slightly-larger-than-small amount of anxiety.
The truth is it’s more freeing than scary.
When we started talking about making this move I presumed I’d get a job and then move. I applied for some, interviewed, and then sat there waiting for the phone to ring. And one afternoon I realized I was waiting for the phone to ring but hoping it didn’t.
That realization was freeing too.
By all normal logic, I should have a job. My husband is a stay-at-home dad and I have a preschooler who’s growing so fast I’m starting to hope capris become a hot style for three-year-old boys.
We intend to buy a house in Calgary, but with the equity in our current house we’ll be able to do that. We sold that house on Friday – the papers have been signed, the for-sale sign has been flipped, and less than a month from now we’re going to hit the road.
I’ve busted out of the golden handcuffs before and it’s not easy. (One of these days I’ll have to tell you the story about how spending a weekend at an alternative treatment centre with my mom when she had cancer ultimately led me to leave a totally secure job and take a pay cut to do the kind of work I wanted to do.) It hasn’t been easy this time around either. But I have never once doubted it’s the right thing to do, and after all that’s happened over the last few months I’m not prepared to take the wrong job just so I have a job. Sometimes I think you have to just GO. The right job will find me.
“Aren’t you scared?” a good friend of mine asked a few weeks ago. “Shitless,” I answered truthfully. But I’d rather be full of fear for a short time than full of regret forever. (And then last week, for similar reasons, that friend quit his job too. The truth is out there, people. It’s spreading, and it’s AWESOME.)
The truth is we spend too much time being scared. We think “scary” equals “wrong” so we stay scared and we do nothing. We stay the course.
The truth is I think I’d die if I stayed the course. Physically, I already came as close as I care to. I’m not letting what I “should” do steal my soul.
Image credit: kxlly on Flickr
There’s a whole other layer to what’s happening in my work environment right now and, while I decided to move on before that begun, it’s been, frankly, awful. There are things I want to pour on this page, but I can’t. That’s one truth I can’t tell. So I don’t have this outlet and my emotion and frustration and grief over a difficult situation have overflowed elsewhere.
Truth: It’s affecting people I care about, and that’s hard.
Truth: It’s damaged a relationship, possibly irreparably, and I regret that while at the same time feel like I can’t do anything about it.
Truth: It feels like I’m leaving part of me behind in this process. Not just the part I have intentionally ditched, but a good part. A stable part. A rational part.
It’s the truth. But it has consequences.
