On Falling Without a Net

For a few years now, people have asked me what I do for a living. I mumble about blogging and writing and they follow up with, “So you do that full time?” The answer was always no, as I had a few side jobs to make ends meet. This included a job for a rep group that sold wholesale items to stores and substitute teaching. Neither job was something I really cared about, but it was easy enough and gave much-needed income.

I recently quit my main side gig after almost 9 years of on-and-off employment. I went from working a few weeks out of the year when I was 18 to working more like 6 months of the year more recently and traveling in between. I will always be grateful for the flexibility that job allowed and the people I worked with, but the work itself was killing me.

As an introvert, talking to customers and selling them things was exhausting. I much preferred the setup aspect when I could tick items off my list, like packing boxes and pallets. But after this year, working five trade shows, I was done. When I worked there, I didn’t have time to do my freelance writing, but I felt like I couldn’t afford to quit. It was a vicious cycle.

This was the time, I decided, to make the leap to full-time freelancer. I’d wanted to take the leap for years. In fact, when I originally left for a year in Australia that was the plan. I wanted to write full time and not have to get a job, but living expenses crushed that dream.

After I got home I decided that I would wait until I earned enough from writing before I quit my second job. I’d known I wanted to quit for a some time. I mentioned it regularly, especially when coworkers would leave to go do other things, but couldn’t bring myself to actually stop until I felt secure, a time that never actually came.

I’d known I wanted to quit for some time. I found myself becoming downright bitter about my working environment like I was being creatively stifled just so I could afford my lifestyle. I mentioned quitting regularly, especially when coworkers would leave to go do other things, but couldn’t bring myself to actually stop until I felt secure, a time that never actually came.

So when the email came asking when I could come into work this season, I thought about it for a day before responding with my “retirement.” A few hours later, I was regretting my decision as I pored over my tax documents and tallied up my minuscule earnings of the year. Taking away a large chunk of it immediately stressed me out.

Something people don’t tell you is that freelancing, in any field, is hard. I’m not talking soldier or doctor hard, something actually hard, but just unstable. When I consider my “billable hours,” I spend a lot of time doing things that aren’t actually paying me.

That includes sending emails with pitches, reading publications I want to pitch to and editing my work. It includes all the time spent on both this blog and This Is My South. It includes answering messages from readers, which I love doing.

The truth is that there’s no good time to take a leap. The saying goes, “leap and the net will appear,” but I’m still waiting, pummeling towards the ground. It’s a terrifying time to be me, but I hope that clearing out that space where a job I wasn’t passionate about will make room for new and exciting things. And if not, I’ll figure it out. There’s something refreshing about the freefall, the courage of instability.

Have you ever given up stability to follow your dreams?