Edition #90: Here Goes Nothing

Plus, stop waiting for your soulmate, the new rules of dinner parties, and a funny video

Nov 04, 2021

1,401 Diving Board Videos and HD Footage - Getty Images

A Note From the Editor

I’ve thought about how to put today’s essay into words for weeks now. There is so much to say, such a fretful, winding path that brought me to this precipice. In many ways this ending was inevitable. There was enough foreshadowing that, if my life were a novel or a movie, it might border on cheesy. The reader/viewer might roll their eyes and think, Could this be any more obvious? I didn’t see it coming so clearly.

Tomorrow marks my final day as a full time employee in corporate America. After eight years—the better chunk of my young adulthood—spent working in marketing, I will turn in my company laptop. I will mail back the badge that grants me access to a shiny office. I will surrender my subsidized health insurance and my 401k match and I will enter the next phase of my life as a freelance writer. Amidst what is being deemed The Great Resignation, it is easy to see yet another person exiting the workforce as something reactionary, something reserved for those with limitless resources and steel safety nets. I can assure you that is not the case for me.

From the moment I graduated college, I made work my single, unshakeable priority. I hustled to get the best job I could find—running digital marketing for a small, family owned business for $35k a year—and hustled even harder to land the high paying job that would finally lift me out of Florida. Since then, I’ve worked in Maui and Scottsdale, Las Vegas and New York City. I’ve been chastised by a pompous CEO in a room full of investors who refused to call me by name, referring to me only as “sweetie”. I’ve been told by a top sales executive that I was “lucky” there were cameras in the elevator the two of us rode in together one morning. When I complained to his boss, I was advised to wear different clothing to work; the Ann Taylor Loft wardrobe I had proudly curated to mark my place as a young professional apparently too suggestive.

I never lost sleep over these transgressions, as I chalked them up to being a necessary part of the utter bullshit and degradation that comes with climbing the corporate ladder as a woman. It was a price I was willing to pay because work was the one facet of my life where I was most celebrated, most loved. I was always good at it and there was a certain satisfaction in that. Mostly I wanted the money. There were student loans and car payments to consider, and once those were gone there were layers of harbored self-hatred from growing up poor to work through. I would never feel good enough until I had enough money; there was no such thing as enough money.

When I moved to New York in 2017, life changed. I left an impossibly demanding job and things slowed down. For the first time I had a chance to pause and check in with myself, and what I found was a disaster of unmanaged trauma and heady emotions. After contemplating whether I might be smart enough to go to law school and researching various career paths I hoped would make me feel like my life had a point, my best friend suggested I start writing.

The irony is that I had always been writing, but I had never considered it something I could be paid to do. Call it growing up broke and being educated in the public school system in central Florida, but I sincerely did not realize there was a world in which I could make a living through words. I had been so conditioned to think there was only one, very narrow way to live—a 9 to 5 job you didn’t like, stability, retirement after 65 years of work. If there was an alternative, it wasn’t for people like me. I still imagined myself to be this hungry, desperate girl with something to prove rather than the capable, safe adult I had worked so hard to become.

When I started intentionally writing, in late 2018, the world began to shift beneath me. It opened up and so did I. Still, it took me a full year before I was willing to admit aloud that I was writing. It took me another year, and several months of therapy, to feel comfortable uttering the word “writer” in reference to myself. I finally started taking writing seriously in early 2020, because by then I was forced to admit the troubling truth—that I was deeply and hopelessly in love. I had found the thing I wanted to do. The prospect terrified me and in many ways it still does, but at the same time it felt right.

I resisted for as long as I could. I pushed myself to write in the mornings and on weekends, I constantly punished myself for not being able to produce a novel while working from home, maintaining this newsletter, and living through a global pandemic. I skirted the edge of a mental breakdown, for every day not devoted to writing felt like a day I had failed. The writing days, when they did come, were always the best. Easy and electric. I’ve heard many creatives say you shouldn’t quit your day job, spewing those glorified tales of writing in the early morning and the late evening with a full day of work between. Some people are built for that and I am not one of those people. Once I had discovered the truth, that there was nothing I would rather do in the world than spend my days writing, each day at work got a little harder. The only thing holding me back was my fear and I was constantly aware of it, a splinter buried deep in the flesh of my finger.

Leaving the comfort and safety I have built a life around is the most treacherous thing I’ve ever done. It means dismantling an entire sector of my identity. It means growing out of my unhealthy obsession with money and status. It means risk, a risk made greater by the fact that I do not have a financial support system if things go haywire. No partner, no wealthy family member to save me, just me. And still, I feel utterly at peace. Being able spend the bulk of my days writing and reading, and being able to introduce myself as a writer without a quiver in my voice, is the single greatest reality I could conjure. This is what I have always wanted, even if it took me some time to admit how badly I wanted it. This, I think, is my destiny.

As a full time freelance writer I will finally have more time to dedicate to this newsletter, launched nearly two years ago. I started with a humble readership of around 50 supportive friends and family members. Today, nearly 1,000 people from all over the world read along each week. I am proud; I love this digital space and I also want to make it better. In the coming months, I’ll be launching a video series where I interview fascinating, inspiring, and overall lovely people whose ideas are worth knowing. I will also be launching a paid version of this newsletter.

Going paid has always been the end goal, but I didn’t feel I could justify it until I gave you—my readers—something more. I’ll be working out the kinks of what that something more is, but I like to think we’ve given each other so much already. You’ve given me your attention, your warm, generous comments and emails. I’ve given you a different perspective, I hope, and a slew of ideas to contemplate and inspect. This newsletter has become something of a safe haven for me, a space to grow and challenge my own perspectives, but it is also very much a labor of love. It takes a lot of time and patience. When I go paid—sometime around the 100th edition, in January 2022—I sincerely hope you’ll consider becoming a paying subscriber. It will mean supporting my writing career, and it will also mean I’ll be able to justify spending more time making this a corner of the internet where you’ll want to stay. I will always keep a free version, too. In the meantime, I’ll be focused on growing my subscriber base and putting some of these new ideas to work.

I was scrolling through my phone’s voice notes the other day when I came across this one. I recorded it back in April, on the morning my first short story was published, and I had completely forgotten about it until I played it back. It just so happened to be a day my self doubt was shouting at a much higher volume than my self confidence. As I pressed play and listened to the wrecked, elated girl rambling on in that voice note, I laughed and I cried. It was exactly what I needed to hear. That is the girl I am making this decision for. That girl had no choice but to jump.

Cheers, my dears, and as always thanks for reading. I listened to this song a thousand times while working up the courage to leave my job, and a thousand more times to boost my confidence afterward. Give it a listen. And if you liked today’s edition, please share it. You can do so via the button below, on Twitter, on Instagram, however you please. If you’re struggling to make a similar decision in your life, don’t rush it but don’t sit still for too long, either. The fear will always be there. You will be forced to come face to face with it when the time comes, but you can do it.

Three Pieces of Content Worth Consuming

Stop Waiting For Your Soulmate. The cynic in me laughs at the idea that anyone might think soulmates are real, so this piece deeply resonated. We're fed the idea of a single soulmate awaiting us from the time we are children (thanks, DIsney), and that expectation influences the way we grow up to perceive love. The ever-wise Arthur Brooks on why soul mates are a fallacy, what holding on to unrealistic beliefs about love can do to a relationship, and a better, more lasting alternative approach.
The New Rules of Dinner Parties. I recently interviewed an incredibly talented chef / ray of sunshine internet personality and I asked him how to handle dinner party anxiety—the idea that everything has to be perfect if you want to have friends over for a meal. He said a stained rug is the sign of a good life and that you need not wait for a kitchen table to throw the "perfect" dinner party. In essence, it's time to just take the plunge and get over yourself. These new rules of the dinner party expressed a similar sentiment, which I will be testing out myself tomorrow.
How to Practice. This essay from novelist Ann Patchett tugged at my heart. In it, she undertakes the process of clearing out her stuff, trying to find meaning of the things she chose to keep throughout the years, and trying to decide whether she is strong enough to let some of it go. It's not just about how to practice the art of purging things, it's about how to practice the art of discovering who you are. Trying on new hats and new jackets and new identities. A meditation on how we like to think our self is attached to the things we buy, as though we can consume our way in to the person we want to become.

Perhaps You Should… Make A Crossword Puzzle

As a big fan of The Mini Crossword by the New York Times, I was delighted to discover this free crossword maker. This would make the sweetest, most thoughtful gift for the upcoming holiday season, peppered with inside jokes and intimate memories for your lucky recipient.

Bonus Content (The Gay Son)

heartthrobanderson

A post shared by Rob Anderson (@heartthrobanderson)

Rob Anderson is one of my favorite creators / comedians on the internet. His writing is witty and genius, and this episode of Gay Science is a work of art.

A Quote From A Book You Should Read:

“Writing isn’t about making money, getting famous, getting dates, getting laid, or making friends. In the end, it’s about enriching the lives of those who will read your work, and enriching your own life, as well. It’s about getting up, getting well, and getting over. Getting happy, okay? Getting happy.”

-On Writing by Stephen King

This newsletter is best served with a side of conversation, so drop your opinions, reflections, and thoughts in the comments below and let’s get to talking.

that's so interesting

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