The good quit

Something in me always changes in the winter. And not in an increased psoriasis way. Recently, I was reminded that Mila and I have been back in Washington for going on three years now. Coming home was hands down the best and easiest choice I have ever made.

My life has exponentially improved since doing so.

Actually, here, I made a chart.

WITH LINES (well, one).

AND NUMBERS.

Basically it outlines how I've felt about myself for the past ten years. The especially low points were in 2008 when I was pregnant (devastating blow and disappointment to myself, but ended up saving every aspect of my life....thanks Mila, owe you girl) and in 2010 right before, during and after I moved home from Florida.

As you can see, it's been a rocky road back up toward "great."

Really what I want to say is, that sometime in 2010, like late 2010...almost 2011, I realized a trend in my life that began in 2007.

The year I was recruited by Abercrombie....duh, duh, duhhhhhhhhh.

The way I felt about myself significantly decreased, hmm...I wonder why.

Maybe it was due to being in the super intense stressful retail world on a daily basis?

Or maybe it was being faced daily with the series of bad decisions that led to me having a child?

Or maybe it was working at a place hyper focused on appearances while I went through the most dramatic bodily change of my life?

Or maybe it was because every year, with every new round of 17 and 18 year old employees, I felt every ounce of my past potential draining away from me.

Or maybe it was the fact that I couldn't reconcile myself with what my company stood for, and that I felt like a cowardly sell out because I was a newly single mom terrified of providing for a child on her own?

Really, it was all those things, but the clincher was moving back home.

Washington.

The place I had fantasized – no romanticizing of that word choice here, I daily DAYDREAMED of being back home, nearly every single day I was away for three years.

I think it was a combination of being in Washington, a newly single mom, in a tired environment (Abercrombie), being faced with the accomplishments of my peers. I only worked there for 4 months (September–December 2010) but I hid in the stockroom any time someone I knew came in.

Because I was embarrassed! Other than the awesome relationships I formed with my employees (my "kids") the only thing that job really taught me was all of the things I was either bad at, or didn't want from a job.

I was a terrible manager. The kids all thought I was great, but that's because I really struggled with making them do things that were stupid or that made them uncomfortable for minimum wage.

More simply put – I got a lot of crap from upper management for being a decent person with morals (hard earned in some cases).

Anyway, the final straw came with the last store manager I worked for, here in the Tri-Cities. She was young, and driven and I liked her immensely. But she was immature and made some serious career-threatening bad choices. You can see where this is going.

She knew I didn't approve and made my daily life hell because of it. I mean, I was only there for FOUR MONTHS, c'mon!

So Christmas season was ramping up and I was basically doing minimum wage work because I was no longer on speaking terms with her, when I just decided...I'm done.

I thought, I don't need this place. I know there's still something valuable in me. I hate how I feel at work, and the dread I feel at home knowing I have to come back to work. I can't show Mila this as any sort of excuse for "life."

So, I talked to my parents that night, and told them, "I'm going to be a writer again."

It was scary because I had never quit a job before without having another lined up. But if I waited to find something, I knew I would never do it.

I had to trust that voice in me (okay, it was probably God being like, JENN SNAP OUT OF IT YOU CRACKHEAD) that said "This is terrible, you are worth more," and believe it.

So I did. I put my two weeks in, with some reserves, plus the cash I was earning part time as a copy writer for MM3 at the time.

And freeing myself up at that time led to me getting a full time job within a month which led to the road I'm on now.

Who knows where I would be, and what Mila's life would be like, if I hadn't trusted that there was better for me? Or in the very least, that I was capable of showing Mila more?

It was the best quit of my life.

And now thinking about this has made me think of all the other times I had to put my foot down and quit doing things that made me crazy. But that's a whole series of stuff I can't write about at this moment.