Yeikes.
Well, today's the day I decided I had to deal with the financial demons that have been plaguing me for so long. And secret, horrible doubts are starting to seep in about my decision to walk away from my steady job at the Soul Sucking Corporation. (Granted, when I left, I had no idea I was leaping from the frying pan into the fire) But those doubts are absolutely terrifying.
On a very real level, I know how unutterably miserable I was there. I don't call it Soul Sucking Corporation for nothing - I cried every Sunday night and watched my self-esteem plummet while I was there. My manager was a toxic, sarcastic individual who made me feel like I was too stupid to remember to breathe out after breathing in, and I continually felt stifled and completely unable to be my authentic self there.
But right now, I'm freaking out at the security I so easily walked away from. I'm kicking myself for allowing others to determine my sense of self-worth and cutting short what could have, had I handled it better, been a gravy train. It was not hard work. I was making a ridiculous amount of money for pretty brainless activity and I had really good friends there. Instead, I allowed a combination of depression, spinelessness, hateful management, and an overdeveloped sense of duty to stew into an unbearable situation. Had I been coming from a place of strength, I could have made it work.
And I wouldn't be sitting here, at 38 years old, living off unemployment, trying to figure out what utility I can do without and applying at entry-level temp jobs again. Somebody tell me I did the right thing?
/self pity
for whatever my demented opinion is worth, i TOTALLY think you did the right thing. i did a simillar thing - though for very different reasons - and am in the same scary place as you right now. basically i quit a job i loved to bits because it was at an art college on the other side of the country from where i live. i split my week four days there and three at home for five years, and had just had enough, despite the fact that i loved my job, was valued there, had amazing friends etc. but the rest of my life was totally on hold. so i quit. nearly eight months down the line i still haven't found a new job, and the savings i've been living on are dwindling at a scary rate. i'm shitting bricks over it, but i know i made the right decision, because the job was holding me back from doing other things - i could have kept doing it and woken up in fifteen years, suddenly aware that i never tried to realise any of my other ambitions. which is more scary. if a sense of duty played a part in you making a scary life decision, then i really take my hat off to you, because so few people have the guts for that. so. go you.
-- by
lee, at
3/17/2005 7:00 PM