Why I left my senior-level office job to pursue music in the middle of the COVID-19 crisis
I knew the moment was coming when I would have to tell people why I left my “steady” job as the COVID-19 pandemic was creating economic uncertainty across the world.
Part of me has been dreading it because I am afraid of what people will say—it’s reckless, it’s stupid, it’s short-sighted, it’s cowardly…
This fear is the Achilles’ heel that too often holds me back from reaching for the life I want to live. I know I’m not alone in trying to hide my imperfections—we are all human—but somehow it is excruciatingly difficult for me to share that I have been struggling with my mental health.
Well, I have.
That’s why it feels important to me to share this story publicly. I want to contribute to the community of people who share stories that help us remember we are human. (It’s one of the reasons I love theatre.) I want to be part of the community of people who are not ashamed of their story — imperfections and all. Most importantly, I want to play my part in reducing the stigma around mental health — especially as COVID-19 rages around us. We’re going to need all the help we can get.
So here goes.
Act 1
On March 20, 2020, as COVID-19 was sweeping the United States, sowing fear and unemployment and sickness, I left my “steady” job (with the full support of my wife, I might add) as Director of Marketing and Communications at a major regional non-profit theatre.
I was well paid, had full benefits, a strong team, supportive colleagues, and was serving at a time when the organization was innovating and doing the kinds of things I had long wanted to see happen more broadly in the field.
But I was miserable. It didn’t make sense.
I had felt this before. A couple of years earlier, I was the Managing Director of a different regional non-profit theatre and while I was proud to serve this organization, the day-to-day nature of that particular job was leaving me drained and creatively unfulfilled. My hope was that returning to marketing—where I had been happy in prior years—would fill that creative void.
But it wasn’t working. And almost 2 years later, the pain was getting unbearable. I was numbing. I was drinking more than I should. I was ignoring my kids, my wife, my family, and my friends. I was moody and angry and frustrated and territorial and, perhaps most alarmingly to me, I was feeling uninspired and unmotivated. It wasn’t like me. I wasn’t caring. How could this be, when I had worked so hard to get to this place and do this kind of work? Was this what my life was going to feel like from now on?
I felt trapped.
Then, one by one, I started abandoning the self-care habits I had so intentionally developed over the years and for the first time, I was seriously worried about my mental health—and so was my family.
Act 2
If you take anything away from this, I want you to take away that mental health is something to take very seriously. Get help if you need it. There’s no shame in it.
That said, I was very slow to take this advice myself. I was embarrassed to need a therapist. It was okay—great, even—for others to have one, but not me. For me, it was a sign of weakness. Fortunately, my amazing wife poked holes in the twisted logic I was using to keep myself from seeking help and last summer, together, we found me a therapist. (Thanks hun.)
In one of our first sessions, my therapist made an observation that music seemed to be very important to me. For some reason I started crying. Crying! Why?
It took me months to answer this question and understand its impact, but simply put, I had somehow let music, which had been the center of my life for most of my life, become the least important thing. It was getting the scraps of my energy and time, but even in those scraps it was abundantly clear how much joy making music gave me. It was a more potent joy generator than almost anything else in my life. I was suppressing it at my own peril.
Interestingly, there was a brief, sweet time in 2006-7 when I got to write music full time thanks to an investor in a musical I was creating. It felt like a dream job. When those funds ran out, I took a full-time job as a Marketing Assistant at a small non-profit theatre in NYC, thinking it might help me get my show produced. Six months later, I was the Marketing Director. Then 12 years went by and the energy I used to spend making music was now being poured into spreadsheets and strategic planning and team management and administrative work.
While I am grateful for and proud of the career I built in theater administration, I can see how I let each “step forward” take me further away from the thing I love the most (outside of family, of course — but often that too). I had forgotten how to balance “the other stuff” with music and drastic steps needed to be taken.
So, when the circumstances in my life created an opportunity to pursue music professionally full time, I felt—again with my wife’s support (did I mention she’s amazing)—that I had to take the leap.
Act 3
In early March 2020, I resigned and offered to stay through the end of May hoping to get the organization through the rest of the season, next season’s launch, and some of the other big projects being developed.
A week later, COVID-19 took over our lives.
As we pivoted quickly to do everything virtually, the hours somehow got even longer and my mental health began taking a turn for the worse—like crying in the kitchen worse. At a senior staff meeting, I wasn’t able to fight back tears when my boss asked me the simple question: how am I doing?
I had been saying to my team all week that we have to prioritize self care during this pandemic — that this is why the instructions on the plane are to put the oxygen mask on yourself first before helping others — because if we are not well, it is very difficult to be of service to others no matter how much you want to do it.
I had tried to soldier on and step up and serve a mission/an organization/a team I care about so deeply in a time of need, but it was time for me to admit to my team — and myself — that I had to put on an oxygen mask and breathe for a bit.
With my boss’s blessing, I made the difficult decision to step down immediately.
Epilogue
A week later, I feel like I can breathe again.
For all of the fear brought on by this pandemic, the forced quarantine has also delivered the much-needed medicine of time with family, home-cooked meals, movie nights, and, of course, social distancing, which, as an introvert, has been a rejuvenating blessing.
It’s forced me to consider my own mortality and the age-old question: If you found out you were going to die in a matter of days, how would you want to spend your time? For me the answer has become much simpler. I’d want to be surrounded by my family and I’d want to be making music.
I don’t know what the future will hold—no one does. This could be the smartest decision I’ve ever made or the dumbest. The best timing, or the worst. I know some will think I abandoned my colleagues in a time of need, some won’t care at all, and others might feel I am committing career suicide.
To all of those voices of potential shame, I offer peace. I choose not to feel shame about my story. It is imperfect. It is a journey. This is a step I am taking that feels like it is rebalancing something that has become unbalanced. I don’t know where it will lead, but this is me doing my best to listen to the deepest parts of my soul as the chaos and pressures of the world swirl around me. I am responsible for my own happiness. I am human. And I am proud to share this story in the hopes it might help others like me seek the help and take the steps they need to be happy.
I recently came across this quote from Charles Dubois:
“Be able, at any moment,
to sacrifice what we are
for what we could become.”
I pray that this be possible for us all. As for me, I am grateful that last week, I wrote music. I’m grateful that this week, I have the energy and the time to do it again. And even as a virus is spreading through our country, I find myself excited about the future.
