I Feel Like I Owe You an Explanation

So I know I’ve been kind of vague lately about my life plans and “rearranging my blocks” and whatnot. I’ve been hedging on revealing exactly what I’m thinking about doing because, well, you know how once you say something out loud that means you actually have to follow through on it? I’m a little scared (and sad) to have to follow through.

Lately, I’ve been thinking about making a complete 180 on my career, and going back to school to become a physical therapist’s assistant. It’s a two-year, associate degree program that I could complete at a community college. It’s obviously a complete change from what I’ve been doing for the last 10 or so years, but given how dire the job search has been I’m feeling the need to pursue a profession that’s more sustainable. I could go into a long tirade about how journalism today isn’t the journalism I signed up for in college, but I won’t because the only people who really care about that are my fellow writer friends who are feeling the same sting of the changing—and more often than not—declining landscape.

So why become a PTA? Three reasons: I could complete my degree in a year or two, make a decent living, and it’s a much more transferable skill to a city other than New York. Physical therapy is something I’ve been doing personally, and to great success, and I like the idea of a day-to-day that’s more active than just sitting at a desk all day. But I’m only mildly interested it. It’s certainly not my passion in life, and definitely not in the way that writing is (was?).

And since I’m being honest here, another reason I’ve been hedging on making this transition is because I feel like I’m giving up on something I love. I liken it to the feeling I got when my high school boyfriend broke up with me before he went away to college. I knew it was the logical thing for him to do, but that doesn’t mean I wasn’t sad about it. (For the record, this is a metaphor. I love my husband, not my ex-boyfriend from 15 years ago.) The thought of leaving writing and editing behind truly makes me sad, to the point where if I thought about it long enough I could probably shed a tear over it. Maybe.

Some folks have been quick to point out that even if I do pursue PTA school, I don’t have to completely give up writing—I could still freelance, after all. And blog. But it’s more than that. It’s this notion I have that I’m “giving up,” and I’ve mentioned before how I don’t like it when Life beats me.

And so...

I wonder: Any advice for me? Do I pursue PTA school or continue in the manner I’ve been in?

Randomonium

Because when I did a Google image search for "random," this is what came up.

Aaaah, it has been sooooooooo long!

I've missed this blog, and even recently found out that I have a few dedicated readers who I've been disappointing with my absence. (Hi Emily, Katie and Janet!) My excuse? I've been busy. Even with only working part-time. (I'm always sort of blown away by how running a few errands can eat up an entire afternoon. How did I do all this with a full-time job? And at a startup, no less.)

But alas, today I have some time, and feeling inspired by my friend Ilyse, who recently started her own blog chronicling her adventures in her new home base of D.C., I made a point to write today. There's actually been a lot I've wanted to write about in the last few weeks (month, really!), but never managed to fully form thoughts about. Here are a few of those thought-provoking topics: 

5 Things Parents Need to Stop Saying to Non-Parents 
I've heard some of these comments, and always thought I was being overly sensitive in being annoyed by them. It's nice to know I wasn't.

Women Who Keep Their Maiden Names Aren't Necessarily Feminists 
I just like my given name, okay? It has a certain ring to it.

Temporary Jobs Becoming a Permanent Fixture in U.S. 
This one hit home, because being in a temporary gig -- as much as I enjoy its flexibility -- is stressful for a Type-A personality who always needs to know what's coming next. It's a bit frightening to me that this could be the future way of the workplace.

Are Suburbs Where the American Dream Goes to Die? 
I like city life, but there are elements of suburbia that I miss. Like Target. A patch of grass that's all mine. Driving. (Until I drive, and then I hate it.) I'm known to sometimes romanticize suburban life, and this news doesn't make me feel good.

And so that's it. Hopefully one day soon, I'll actually have time to read an article, form an opinion, and then write about it.

But until then, it's been nice catching up.

I wonder: What's been on your mind lately?

Nagging Questions

I'm not a big believer in signs, but two big questions have been coming up a lot for me lately and so therefore are hard to ignore. 

Part of the genesis of these questions has to do with a series of articles I'm working on, and part of it has to do with the advice I've been seeking on my own as part of my current career-centric soul-searching. (And for the record, the people asking these questions are not new-age hippies.)

The first: Am I successful? 

Having recently been laid off and see my income drop dramatically, the obvious answer would be no. But it turns out, the best measure of my success is one that I never considered.
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The second question, which I now realize is inarguably tied to the first, is just as easily answerable:

How happy are you? 

Truth be told, I'm pretty darn happy right now.

How does this net out, you might be wonder?

No doubt about it, certain things are a bit unstable, and I don't have everything I want at the moment, but overall I'm feeling fulfilled in the work that I'm doing, which is something I haven't felt in a long time. I'm really enjoying just simply writing and editing again, and I like the flexibility that freelance is affording me.

And when I consider the network I've built through my career, and how invaluable they've all been to me this past month, I feel incredibly lucky. This network helps me stay afloat -- and I'm talking about my confidence as well as my finances here.
 
Freelancing isn't a path I've purposefully chosen to follow, but I certainly can't complain that I am on it at the moment. I'm realizing a lot about what I value both personally and professionally, and more important, I have a better understanding of what I want to make of my life, both personally and professionally. And the interesting thing is, these conclusions are ones I never would have expected to come to.

So maybe it's time to condense these two questions: Am I successful at being happy?

The answer is, absolutely.

Photo: Deposit Photos

I wonder: Are you successful at being happy?

Oh, Hello Again

So a week in and I've already reneged on my promise to write every day. (Which I've thought about multiple times editing to "almost" every day.)

Truth be told, I've been surprisingly busy for being unemployed. (In fact, I'm trying to finish this blog post in the 12 minutes it's taking to hard-boil some eggs.) Here's what I have been doing:

• Freelancing 
• Applying for jobs 
• Meeting up with old colleagues for coffee and clarity 

Here's what I haven't been doing:

• Blogging 
• Keeping up with my gratitude journal 
• Cooking for my husband like I had hoped when this extra time was bestowed upon me 

(Yeah, I know. I'm bummed about the gratitude journal, too, because I heard how it inspired so many of you. But I plan to get back to it tonight. That I promise.)

What I'm realizing (and what I'm currently struggling with) is that I have to make a decision. Spending four hours each morning job hunting, customizing cover letters and sending out resumes followed by eight hours of sending out pitches and working on freelance assignments has me working like I'm back at a startup. And I don't like it. So I need to choose: Am I going to pursue a full-time job, or am I going to pursue freelance? Freelance is appealing because of the flexibility, and the fact that it would truly afford me the chance to get back to basics, like I'm so badly claiming to want. A full-time job, on the other hand, will afford me a steady salary which would inevitably put me at ease.

So, I wonder: What say you?

It Ain't All Bad

I woke up this morning and had this thought about how the tagline of my blog is "Because life should be about beauty and comfort," and so far every post I've written is full of complaints or bad news. So in an effort to not feel like I'm baiting-and-switching my readers (all 164 of you so far!) today's post is going to be all about the good stuff that's happened recently.

A week or so ago, I read an article in my favorite newspaper, the banner of fine journalism that is the free Metro, about how you can train your brain to think positively by writing in a gratitude journal at the end of each day. A little corny? Sure, but I decided to try it, and I'll admit I'm enjoying the ritual each night.

Now to me, keeping a journal means rambling on about your day for at least a few pages, but this article simply recommended identifying at least two things from your day that you are thankful happened, plus the day's best moment in a sentence or two. (I further streamlined by resorting to fragments.) I've been keeping the journal for about a week now, and this morning decided to share a sampling of some of my moments so far (names have been abbreviated to protect the innocent):

Feb. 6 
Grateful for:
A's career advice
The nice guy from Time Warner Cable who slashed our bill

Best moment: 
Dinner with my best friend

Feb. 8 
Grateful for:
Y's generosity in the job hunt and in life
Dumb luck with subway train timing

Best moment: 
Passion Pit's "Sleepyhead" encore

Feb. 12
Grateful for: 
C's good news
My thoughtful MIL

Best moment: 
Submitting my swan song piece for L

As you can see, some of the moments are seemingly small but still significant to me, while others are just small. (Consider how "taking a nap" has actually made an appearance.) The only rule for the journal outlined in the article is that you cannot repeat your gratitude, which has occasionally made it hard to complete. I won't lie, there are days when I really have to think about the day's best moment and what I'm thankful for because I can only put down "my husband cooking for me" just once. Still, it's a good reminder that even on the worst or most boring of days, there is always something to appreciate.

So with that in mind...

I wonder: What moment--big or small--are you grateful for so far today?

Stop Giving It Away for Free, People

This is my open letter to all of you who "write for free": 

In short, quit it.

Stop giving away your writing talent -- and I use that term loosely -- because every time you do, you diminish the profession, and my already blackened heart dies a little more inside.

Why the rant? Because today was the third time in as many weeks that I heard, "I won't pay for content." (A word I despise, for the record. Articles! The written word! Please, anything but content.) I've heard this from web entrepreneurs and high-level directors of large media corporations alike, who see how crowd sourcing content (ugh) works for traffic giants like HuffPo and Forbes, brand image be damned. And sure, it makes sense from a business standpoint: why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?

But every time they say it, I take it as personal as if they just insulted my mother. Because I wanted this career for as long as I can remember. I trained for it. I studied and practiced it. I deserve to have that commitment respected and rewarded. Because right now, it feels like I trained my whole life to be an Olympic wrestler to only have someone tell me, "Yeah... We're not really doing that anymore."

Look, I get it: A lot of people harbor dreams of being a "writer" and go to any means necessary to be called one. And I don't want to discourage anyone from that dream because some of you are probably (maybe) even good at it. But for the love of god and my student loan payments that saddled me with this now seemingly worthless journalism degree, please stop saying you'll write for free just for the sake of getting published and having a few clips. Any editor worth his salt knows that it ain't hard to get published on Huffington Post and likely won't take those clips seriously anyway. You're better off starting your own blog and monetizing that -- because by doing it any other way you're just ruining it for the rest of us, and ultimately, yourself.

I mean, even prostitutes get paid, don't they? 

Photo: Pacific Ties

Yes, Really.

I know, I know... a blog is so two-thousand-and-late. But this has been a long time coming.

For as long as I can remember, I wanted to be a writer. I went to school for journalism with a minor in English, and was lucky enough to land a gig at a magazine before I even graduated. In my first few jobs, I did a lot of writing. I wasn't winning Pulitzers, but I was living my dream. But somewhere along the way, something changed. Writing became about "stickiness" and "click-yness" and traffic and pageviews, and suddenly, all the fun had been sucked out of the process.

This blog is my attempt to get back to basics. It's an outlet I've been craving for quite some time, and regardless of what my traffic is (though I will, of course, monitor it as I have been trained to do) I plan to blog every day.

I hope you'll come back and visit every so often.