If not now, then when?

So here's something: I quit my job.

I hope the timing wasn't so that you spit your beverage of choice out whilst you read that. I'm sure you are looking at my last post in May of last year and are giving me a well-deserved side eye and asking, WHY!? That's a fair ask; as far as anyone can tell, I've been doing a whole lot of nothing – and you would be right.

I've been in limbo for quite awhile. I've kept a bunch of blogs in my time (Blogger, LiveJournal, WordPress, you name it and I've probably dabbled), but I often think back to a post I made to my defunct WordPress blog, Retro Metro titled This is my co-op.

I posted it over ten years ago in 2013 and it talked about how I was changing the way I viewed writing. I'd always had it on the back burner as a hobby that I did every so often; never had I really put as much effort into it as I did my day job, even when it was far more important to me.

Finally, something clicked. I even added Freelance Writer to my LinkedIn profile. Shortly after this, I started planning and writing Keystone Calamity.

In 2017, I changed my day job. While I'd been unhappy in retail for a very long time, it did allow me to work on writing and editing because I just didn't care about the job. I liked my new job and company, though; I had normal hours for once – 9-5 for the first time in my life. I thought that would give me regular time to work on writing.

I'm sure you see where this is going. I was able to keep up the work-life balance for awhile, but soon the job drained more and more of my energy juices. I was constantly tired, with no motivation to do anything. There would be faint struggles to get my head above the water to gulp down that precious air, but soon enough, I would weaken and sink again.

It was ages until I realised what had happened. Each shift was so gradual and slight that it wasn't until everything was grossly out of alignment that I noticed the problem. It took me seven years to even find the terms to describe what had caused me to fall into a deep, all-consuming depression.

All these fancy words and metaphors just mean that I wasn't living to my values. I wasn't doing what was important to me anymore. That seems so obvious now, but when you're in the throes of existential crisis, you can dig and dig at the problem and still take years to uncover what is really at the bottom of that pit.

Sooooo, I quit.

Obviously, it's not that simple. I'm so lucky to be in a place where I'm able to do this. My job paid well enough that I could save money, I have a partner who is incredibly supportive and willing to take a chance on me and my dreams, and I know I am passionate and serious enough about this to at least try to make it happen.

Today is my last day at my "regular" job. As of Monday, I will be working full-time on my writing. (And a few other personal goals like cleaning up my house and exercising more!) I've often thought and dreamt about doing something like this, but it never seemed possible. Even now, it feels like a far-off misshapen concept that is definitely not happening to me.

To make it more of a tangible reality, I've drawn up a daily work schedule. I've plotted my writing times, my workout times, and even times to do writing-adjacent things like blog work and brainstorming. It's scary because I know how hard it's going to be. This is all on me now – I need to be the one to grasp this opportunity.

Because – if not now, then when?