Life Update: October 2019

Hello again! I don’t sleep much these days, so this post is coming at you via spurts of late-night writing from my bed when the last thing I should be doing is staring at a screen more… but oh well, here we are! I don’t want to sugarcoat it, it’s been a really tough two months for me. I can happily confirm though that things have made a complete 180 over the last couple weeks and I’m finally ready to fill you in on what’s been going on. Keep reading for an update!

Where do I begin?

Well, the tough time I’ve been going through that I lightly discussed in my September life update post is job-related. I realized I was overdue to make a change in my career in early August when I accepted that the job I had was going nowhere. This was genuinely so tough for me to accept because mentally and emotionally, the last thing I wanted to do was look for a new job. For me, it never feels like a “good time” to do this kind of stuff and doing so instantly opens up your life to a lot of self-induced stress and pressure. Regardless, I started looking and applying, doing everything in my power to make this as smooth and quick of a transition as possible. Just a month later, I was notified that my contract at my job would be ending Nov. 1 (following the departure of several others from my team), so that put additional time-sensitive pressure that wasn’t on me originally. I already knew I wanted a new job and was looking for one, but now I had a deadline looming in the distance.

To help this make more sense, here’s some background info:

I signed on as a contractor in a digital design position for a company back in November 2017. It was a 3-month contract that “may end up being longer, may not” kind of thing. That was fine with me because I figured any amount of experience would be great regardless. Three months came and went and I, along with the rest of the people on my team (all contractors as well), were repetitively told that the goal was to bring us all on full-time soon and that’s what they were working toward putting in place. We were told to keep working hard and it would come. This was reassured to me every few months when I asked for updates, and since I liked my job, I thought it was worth it to hold out for that.

Before I knew it, I was a few months shy of my two-year mark and I finally accepted that getting hired on full-time was simply never going to happen. I couldn’t ignore it any longer. I put in the work and made sacrifices to become a stand-out for when selection for full-time roles came around, which included being the first person in the office every single day (usually at least an hour before everyone else), never taking time off (I think I missed five days or less in my two years working there), working efficiently, and being the only original team member still standing and the longest standing team member in general by over a year. Accepting that this position wasn’t going to go anywhere from here after all this time was a bitter pill to swallow.

And like I said, I started looking for a new job — one that wasn’t contract. For those who are unfamiliar with it, as a contractor, you have little to no job security, no PTO (no sick days or vacation days and if you don’t work, you don’t get paid) and likely an expensive benefits package (if you have benefits at all). I’d be happy to do a full blog post on what contract work is like if you guys are interested. Companies are really starting to move toward hiring marketing people on contract for a variety of reasons, but as the contractor, it’s not ideal long-term. Anyway, full-time salary work is better for my future and I was determined to find it.

I found myself spiraling. I still somehow felt emotionally exhausted from the job-hunting process exactly two years prior and though I was hustling to find my next job every day, I felt like I was going nowhere. Putting yourself out there is hard. Getting rejected in a way you feel isn’t constructive is hard. Having the energy to pitch yourself and have what feels like the same conversations over and over again is draining. I became so desperate for change that I beat myself up every single day when things weren’t coming together as fast as I wanted them to. These things take time and I was tired of waiting, searching and just plain worrying all the time. I wanted to be done and onto the next chapter of my life that was dangling in the distance. It felt like a race against time and against myself. I knew I couldn’t handle this process much longer and that it was eating me up. I lost joy for all the things I should have been happy about in my life and simply felt like a robot just trying to get to the finish line that TRULY felt like it kept moving further and further away.

I’ve cried from stress most days over the last month or so, some days all day long (lol, yikes). I’m not an emotional gal, so I’ve been joking that I finally must have reached my emotional maturity or something. Messing with my hormones by deciding to go off birth control for the first time in five years (read about that here) at the same time probably didn’t help. The emotional turmoil made me feel like a bad wife and pretty much a bad everything in some ways. I wasn’t my usual happy self and it was hard to get up some days. I didn’t care to eat, I lost weight and I showed other physical signs of stress on the daily. I was struggling.

Something that these last two months have taught me is that I get a lot of positive self-worth from my career. Having a job I’m proud of, that I feel I’m good at and I feel respected at gives me peace of mind at the end of the day and a form of self-accomplishment that I can’t always supplement elsewhere. I was feeling empty without that positive relationship with my career, and the financial pressure of finding a new job quickly was eating me alive. Though we have money in the bank, the idea of your income coming to a sudden stop is scary.

With all this being said, I’m happy to report that I got a new job! Did I cry after I hung up the phone from hearing the good news? Absolutely, but I’ve been doing a lot of crying these days, so don’t read too far into it. 😉 All I’ve been craving for the past two months is inner peace and I can’t even begin to explain how good it feels to finally have it. I swear I turned into a new person overnight, back to my old self (maybe even better) the second I got the news.

I’ve chosen to share this recent journey of mine with you guys hesitantly, only wondering if it’s just too personal to put out there. I’ve realized though that the positive impact it could have on others by sharing it outweighs feeling embarassed or exposed on my end, so that’s worth it to me. We all go through things, from tough transitions to rejection and decisions we don’t want to make. The important thing to remember though is that it’s all temporary, even though I know it feels like it isn’t. People around me kept reassuring me of this, but I just couldn’t really believe it yet. You’ll get through it and it will all pass. The worry you feel today will go away, and the best thing you can do is stay positive and enjoy your life in the meantime. Don’t forget about everything around you that’s good just because you’re stressed and feeling low.

I want to give a huge thank you to those who have been such a shoulder for me to lean on during all of this, especially Justin and my mom. I’ve needed more pep talks than I can count (or want to admit) and they’ve helped distract me and reignite my drive on my bad days. I’m so grateful for the connections I’ve made through blogging and my freelance work as well, putting kind people in my life who’ve lended a hand in my search — you know who you are & thank you! Getting a new job is a big change, but keep in mind that your career isn’t everything. You have a life outside of work to be enjoyed. I have a feeling this next year is going to be a really good one and I’m hopeful for the future.