In Defense of Quitting My Job

When I was a kid, I believed that life was all rules and rewards. That if I remained patient, polite, and pure of heart, all the world’s treasures would rain down upon me from the heavens and into my sitting lap. I wasted years waiting for the prize of my personal choosing. Waiting for someone to make me a writer with a capital W. Waiting for someone to give me an unlimited amount of money so I didn’t have to work at a job that I hated and still worry about bills. Waiting for someone to reward me for my specialness. I knew what I was meant to be, and meant to have, and that the world would figure it out in due time.

Then one day it hit me. That I wasn’t moving any closer to my goal. That I was getting further and further away from it. That time was slipping. That this might be it. So I had a meltdown.

“This is going to be my life forever,” I cried to my husband from the passenger seat of his car. “This is all I am. I’m just going to be a mom. I just need to accept it. My dreams aren’t going to come true.”

I don’t believe that there’s anything wrong with dedicating your life to parenthood. But from adolescence I had a running list in my head of the person I wasn’t going to be. I wasn’t going to live in the suburbs. My creative life wasn’t going to end when I got married or had kids. I wasn’t going to work a dead-end job. I was going to be a poet. I was going to travel often. I was going to be embedded in a network of creative types. I wasn’t going to be weighted down by the baggage of money troubles. I was going to impact the world. My husband and I were going to be like Will and Jada Pinkett-Smith. And when I became a mom, I was going to be the cool mom.

But six months into motherhood, three years into marriage, and 23 years into life, there I was, crying in my husband’s car about my dying dreams. We were on opposite shifts because we couldn’t afford childcare. I was working overnights as the only scheduled room service attendant at a large hotel. I came home at 7am to a baby who was ready to start the day just as I was ready to end mine. I hated my job. It was physically and psychologically exhausting. And despite dedicating as much energy as I did to working, I was still broke. Free time was as much of a myth to me as sleep was. I stopped having opinions. I stopped thinking about anything but how to get through the day. Soon, a year had gone by since the last time I’d written anything. Then a year and a month. Then a year and two months. Then three.

One day, a customer with a lot of wealth and power was particularly impressed by my ability to take his order. He asked me what my aspirations were and where he could put a word in for me. I couldn’t answer him. I wasn’t sure. What I wanted was so far away from the path I was on. I just knew that I didn’t want to do what I was doing. I knew I felt like I couldn’t breathe. I knew that instead of being the power couple my husband and I planned to be, we were wilting. In the four hours a week that our schedules overlapped, we’d bicker over who deserved an hour of autonomy more. And I always gave in. Because despite my fervent feminist beliefs, I couldn’t shake the guilt of choosing an hour of alone time over an hour with my son, who often had a mom too tired to play with him. I breastfed, I changed him, I begged him not to cry. It was all I could muster most days.

And then I couldn’t muster anything anymore. I just felt crushed. I realized that things didn’t happen unless you made them happen, and that I hadn’t made anything since I made a baby. I didn’t have the energy. Most days I didn’t even make myself food. I was coming apart, and I knew it. But I was afraid to have a real conversation about it, because I was ashamed. I’d watched my mom, a single mother, work thirteen hour days, come home to double the children, with none of the help of a spouse. My mother in law worked 70 hour weeks with two kids and no spouse. My husband worked 12 hour days and sacrificed sleep for photography sessions at dawn. I didn’t believe I had any excuse. I felt weak.

I tried to blame sleep deprivation. I switched to day shifts, working on my husband’s days off. This eliminated the four hours a week that we had together, but I thought it was better than neither of us getting any sleep. It wasn’t. During the day my availability was slim, I worked the minimum amount of days for a full time employee. If I requested off for anything, I was expected to pick up a shift on one of the days my husband was at work. Cue not being able to afford childcare. I called out often.

I felt guilty for letting my coworkers down. I felt guilty for missing so much time with my son. He started to go on a bottle strike. I spent my half hour break nursing him instead of eating. My marriage was suffering. My introverted husband was getting no alone time to recharge. My son was asleep when I got home. Friends weren’t even a possibility. I was majorly neglecting myself. I felt stuck. It wasn’t working.

So I quit.

I talked to my husband, we made a plan. I was going to try my hand at freelance writing. My final check could last us a month, and he could do overtime for a month after that, and by then I’d be making money. If I wasn’t making money yet, my bosses assured me that I could always come back. But in that moment, I was free.

It’s been a month and a half. Despite my Why I’m Absolutely an Angry Black Woman and The Black Dad That You Don’t Think Exists pieces going viral, I haven’t made a dime. The mystery of the month is how I am going to contribute to the rent. The day I was asked to call someone about talking about my writing on a podcast, my phone was cut off. But I don’t regret quitting my job, not even a little bit.

Because I now believe in possibility.

Because I feel passionate again. My body doesn’t hurt anymore. I have self worth. I can make my son belly laugh. Now, on my husband’s days off, we say things like, “What do you want to do today?” I had coffee with a friend last week. I try out new recipes because I cook dinner now. I write every day. I read. I’ve impacted the world, if only by making people feel something. And I am taking baby steps towards the dream I mourned just a few short months ago. This weekend, I’m going back to my old place of work. Not to ask for my job back. I’m going to read one of my pieces at a fundraising brunch to empower young black girls. And I feel empowered, too. And that’s enough, for me, for now. The rest I’ll figure out before the rent is due.