• Confirmation

    Date: 2009.08.14 | Category: sometimes I ramble | Tags:

    About 1.5 years ago I quit my job. I didn’t have another job. I had no idea what I was going to do but I figured it would all work out. Eventually. But yes, it was indeed a tough choice.

    I left for a lot of reasons, one being that I wanted some balance in my life. I didn’t want to be on the phone 8 hours a day. I didn’t want to be working at 10pm, knowing that I had started before 8am and no, I hadn’t taken a lunch break, or a dinner break. If I was lucky I’d have showered or at least changed my clothes. (Perhaps a good time to remind everyone I worked at home.) I didn’t want to spend my entire life working. I needed time to play too. And to eat. And to see people. And to just live.

    Even when I was “unemployed” I was still working. (Thank you BlogHer for providing me with a way to pay my student loans.) Then I picked up a morning job. Then I picked up more hours at BlogHer. And then I was more than working a “normal” work week. But it was great. Fantastic even. I work with great people in an office in the mornings and then I come home and work with great people in the afternoons. And I write. I love it. It makes me happy.

    It’s what I do.It was all a very conscious decision to pull back and actually do something other than work. I know some people hear that I work two part-time jobs and think less of me for not having a “real” job. Their choice. I’m doing things I enjoy, that pay me well enough, and I’m happy. The happy pretty much trumps all. I’m very lucky that I can live my life this way and I know it.

    But then another opportunity came my way. It was short. It wasn’t overly complicated. It had a fairly short deadline but it wasn’t totally impossible. I could do it. I mean, I used to work way more right? Well, I did it. And it pretty much sucked. The work? It was fine. Really. It was mostly me at home with my computer, and very little contact with anyone else. It wasn’t trying or stressful or anything bad.

    But at the same time it was. Two jobs? Fine! Really, really fine. I can do two jobs! I did two jobs for years before I quit my “main” job. Three jobs? Ugh. Not so much. I was tired. Cranky. OMG was I cranky. I was resentful about this piece of work that landed in my lap. It was taking me away from that thing I wanted. It was taking me away from life. Yes, I’m being somewhat overly dramatic for something that lasted about a week but did I mention I was very, very cranky? I was absolutely no fun to be around. I didn’t even like me. (You should pity Lee a wee bit. I really wasn’t any fun to be around, which meant he did not have the greatest of weeks either.)

    And now today? It’s behind me. It’s done. Off my plate. It feels like a huge weight has been lifted off of my shoulders and I can breathe again. I’m tired and drained, but I’m free.

    I’ve come to really value my time. I may not do anything so exciting with it. I may watch Buffy in the evenings or read a book or play with a new recipe or knit or play on Chatter and Twitter or kick Lee’s ass at Sequence. It’s nothing life changing or spectacular.

    We live our lives in the quiet moments in between the big ones. It’s in the day to day. It’s in the mundane. It’s a board game after a good meal. Or a drive in the car on a Saturdays afternoon to someplace I’ve never been before. It’s Sunday morning at the Farmers’ Market. It’s sitting on the couch after work talking about our day or about some great thing I read on the internet. (I read a lot of great things on the internet.)

    Life is not me at the computer screen, doing work that I don’t need to do and don’t love. If I ever needed a confirmation of that it was this past week. The extra money is great, but my life is so much greater.