Baby, You're The Safety Net

because sometimes you just have to turn your life upside down

“Off topic, but they finally put in a stoplight at that awful intersection on Congress. You know, where you used to live?” I explained to a now-long-distance friend, as we exchanged a few quick, catch up-adjacent DMs.

It’s the most tangible and practical way I can express what I really mean: that even the old, familiar places, like driving down a street that will forever remind me of older chapters and even older versions of myself, will change.

That things will always change.

It is, after all, the name of the game, I suppose. (ugh).

Back in August, I wrote an entire piece about feeling stuck. In many ways, it was my way of being honest with myself that, although I’d grown content with where I was, it still wasn’t where I wanted to be. That afternoon, I found myself in tears after a tough therapy session. It was getting clearer and clearer, that there was this hole inside of me, growing at an exponential pace just begging to be acknowledged.

To speak plainly: I wasn’t as happy as I was pretending to be.

I was missing purpose, creative fulfillment, and I couldn’t keep showing up to my job, week after week, only to feel completely drained by the end of it.

No one wants to be this honest with themselves because it hurts like hell. And then… you have to do something about it (?!?!???).

My brutal honesty enabled me to give myself the gift of clarity. I knew that something was missing, which helped me discover what I was missing, and from there, I could act. The truth is, I’ve been struggling with my job for a long time now. The nature of the work wasn’t what was most challenging, but the bandwidth it took for me to be present with from 7:30 am - 4:30 pm, in-office and available/ready to problem solve at all times, proved to be the thing that was burning me out the most. Not to mention being understaffed for five months this year, which, is a different story for a different time. At the end of the day, I felt as if I had nothing left for myself—no energy, no creativity, nothing—and I’d go home, get into bed, and mindlessly scroll or binge-watching something to recharge just enough to do it all over again the next day.

Don’t get me wrong: a good mindless scroll and binge-watch are absolutely necessary sometimes. But I wasn’t writing, and I certainly wasn’t cooking (read: hemorrhaging money via takeout/ubereats), leaving me unfulfilled and unsatisfied creatively. Besides, the whole point of having a “9-5” with health insurance and PTO was to be able to clock-in, clock-out, and have more time for the things I loved doing, yet wasn’t ready to make my job-job.

But that wasn’t happening, so something had to change.

I applied for jobs (it’s rough out there, y’all), and I told myself to be patient; that all I needed to do was keep my foot on the gas.

I kept coming back to this idea: that whenever I found the next thing, that I’d land exactly where I needed to be. I could trust that. I could feel that something was on the horizon just waiting for me, and me, it, knowing that I was clear this time about what I wanted: something with purpose, something hybrid or remote to help me conserve emotional energy, something that allowed me to have security and passion.

And then the most unexpected thing showed up. I leapt at the chance to take a part-time job running the farmers’ market booth for a local business called Pasta Fresh. It’d just be one weekend day and would be a fun way to make a little extra money. That was doable—manageable, even. I could do this with my current work schedule and add a little variety to my week.

“We want you to think about what you might need to come on with us full-time. We’d have you run markets, help with production, and teach cooking classes. Just think about it.”

See, the most fucked up thing no one talks about is how sometimes getting what you want is actually terrifying.

It wasn’t the same security I was looking for. No, it was a huge fucking risk. But it was everything I wanted artistically, if you will.

I freaked out about it, a lot—as in, a lot more than I expected to—because everything would change which is exactly what I wanted but holy shit is that fucking scary. But there was something inside of me saying:

Jump. Just jump, and you’ll catch you. You can make this work.

I panic voice-messaged two of my friends who I knew would give me the tough love I needed to help me cut through the bullshit and anxiety I was stuck inside of. They’re the best kinds of friends: you know, the ones that remind you that this is exactly what you wanted and that yes, of course, it’s scary but that you’re the kind of person that can and will take the risk.

So I jumped.

And I quit my job.

And now I’m embracing something new, and strange, and uncertain, that’s also invigorating and inspiring.

Mostly, I just feel relieved: relieved that I jumped, that I remembered that I can.

I'm definitely still processing all of this change, but I keep coming back to an exchange I had with my friend Sydney as we traded voice messages back and forth. All was said and done: I’d put in my notice, chosen a first day of employment, and had begun telling the people in my life about the decision I’d made. In retrospect, most of my initial conversations helped me wrap my head around this big decision.

“And the thing is,” I declared into the tiny microphone located somewhere in my iPhone. “Yes, it’s a big risk. And who knows what will happen in the future. But I think I’m realizing that regardless of what happens, I’m going to figure it out. I think so much of my anxiety in the past has been about like… needing a safety net but, baby, you’re the safety net. I’m the safety net!”

Of course, that declaration was more for me than it was for her, and yet the two of us continue to come back to these words of radical self-trust:

Baby, you’re the safety net.

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