Off to Find My Sparkle

Two weeks ago I slid a piece of paper across a table to my bosses, exhaled, and said “Please accept this as a notice of my resignation.”

They stared at me, a stunned expression on their faces, asking me where I was going and what job I was offered. At my response that there was, in fact, no fancy job lined up their faces went from confusion to blatant shock. I was leaving without a plan.

As I told people over the past couple weeks this is an expression, I became familiar with. The concept of not knowing the future is difficult to comprehend.

I never envisioned myself in a typical 8.5-hour workday, sitting in a little cubicle with tacked up photos of my family to break up the reality of spending more time staring at my Outlook inbox than with them. However, when I graduated from college, I thought it was worth a shot to see if I could take my scatter-brained creativity and put it in an office.

I learned to drink coffee. I developed a sleep schedule. I put a lamp in my cubicle to make it feel more like home. My craft supplies collected dust. My Esty shop grew stagnant. I began to lose myself in the cocoon of monotony. Layers of hope and disappointment shrouded my mind.

I restarted therapy and realized something had to give. This time, I chose to keep myself. This is a fight with depression I often revisit.

I am breaking the cycle.

It is with pride, fear, and excitement I declare the “plan” that friends and strangers alike ask me for: I am off to do what makes me sparkle.

For now, that will be sitting on the lawn of the VMFA with my pug and overheating MacBook scrolling through Indeed for hybrid marketing or design positions.

I’ll be found lurking in the corners of the local public library reading about native flowers. You can catch a glimpse of me learning how to jog -- just wait for that blog post, it’s been quite the experience for both me and the dog -- through the city. I’ll be mixing resin crafts with scrapbooking just for the fun of it.

My fiancee, Bean, peered at me across our sushi last night. Right as I attempted to shove a whole Shrimp Tempura roll in my mouth she asked, "So, what are you going to do on Monday?"

As I fumbled to wipe sauce off my chin -- because, I, of course, am a lady -- I shook my head without an answer. For the past few months I've been thinking day by day because that is how I had to survive. The idea of thinking past tomorrow had yet to hit me and on Monday when I wake up, I will not have a job.

"Apply for freelance positions on Upwork, apply for jobs, maybe breathe."

She smiled at me, "Breathing sounds good."

"Oxygen is important I guess." I shrugged and we moved on allowing my planless plan to just exist.

Heal. Breathe. Exist.

On Monday I plan to begin healing. What that means is something I will learn. In 2020 all of my cracks finally split me down the center and I broke. Since then I have not taken time to breathe and truly allow myself to heal. I had to catch up on coursework, finish writing my book, finish my senior projects, graduate from university, get a full time job, work that job for a year, I moved to a new city, I fell in love... some of these are miracles, some of these are disasters I will look back at with melancholy. I would not trade any moments I experienced for the world but right now I will put my rushing on pause.

There was a moment in university I called myself out for this exact same thing. That day I switched my major to photography. I was living my life for the future and not the present.

This blog is an effort to bring myself back to my passions as well. I used to write every day. I have two published books and run a literary magazine for goodness sakes and I cannot tell you the last time before this moment when I last put my thoughts onto paper for something that simply brought me joy and was not a job requirement.

This website is a work in progress and this blog is just getting started but I cannot wait, dear reader, to share the stories of my adventure with you and other curious souls.

I am taking a leap into the darkness and have my fingers crossed for a job opportunity that meshes with the things that make me, well, me.

Subscribe to this blog to follow my seek of sparkle and enjoyment of the now.