02. How to “Have it All”

Bianca Monaco
Sep 5, 2018 · 5 min read

All I wanted was a new job in a new city before I turned 27. Although, I thought I would be at it for months trying to find a job. Sure, I’d get one, but not before 27. I thought I would have to take a part-time position as a waitress and be building out a portfolio site with contracted work to hold me over. I thought I would be couch hopping because surely one friend would grow to be exhausted of me over time. I thought that moving back east was not an option. I was going to make it work. Come hell or months bartending, I wasn’t abandoning this decision to move my life out West. I was ready. Everyone was ready.

And then, there it was… living proof the Gods truly fuck with the mortal’s lives. From the day I landed to the day I (electronically) signed the dotted line, it took 4 weeks. Really- it took 3 weeks. It just took an extra week to get the paperwork together. All from a role that I had no internal reference, a friend of a friend, met at a networking event “omg how funny is that” kind of playbook. All due to a raw submission of an application that I barely thought would be processed. And all of this, just 2 weeks shy of my 27th birthday.

That is what people are championing me for, the 4 weeks. The “I knew you’d get it!” the “wow that was fast!.” But the funny thing, just like watching the best part of a film about champions, there was a lot that people missed in this storyline that led to the gold.

So, let me outline exactly how long this took and how it got put together:

  • 1 year and 18 days (383 Days / 54 Weeks /13 Months, however, ya want to frame it)
  • Upwards of 300+ hours dedicated to selling all my belongings
  • 6 months of weekends dedicated to savings plans, extra side hustle work, constant *distance* networking
  • 35–65 cold Inboxing on Linkedin to connections, connections of connections, and straight up no connections people
  • At least 20–25 revisions and additions to my resume
  • 5 Cover Letters (I HATE cover letters)
  • 40–60% of my energy each month dedicated to a panic attack or feeling “lost” on what to do next — do I stay or do I go? What job am I really applying for? Why do I really need to leave?
  • Bi-weekly mental breakdowns
  • Lots of texts to the 2–3 good friends that tolerate your panic texting
  • Lots of phone calls to the 2 good friends that will listen to the venting and anxiety and game planning
  • Planning to plan.
  • Getting rid of that plan and making a new one
  • Flirting with the idea, and even starting to study the GMAT but then realizing I don’t want to go to business school yet, I got more fight left in me.
  • Go through a breakup, stay friends, but realize no matter what you are 110% alone on this journey. But also sad and question the journey.
  • Then decide to stick to journey, cause this is about you and you are way too proud and stubborn to make a decision around any man (even if they are in fact wonderful and great). Never did — never will. Put it on my grave.
  • Thinks about writing a will to ensure the right words on my grave just in case this effort does, in fact, kill me.
  • Setting 3–4 new “need to move by this time” dates every month because of fear of going to do this.
  • Declaring that I would never move without a job.
  • Looking back on my months of applying and deciding that I need to have less pride and go without a job.
  • Defending my life choices to my parents who wanted to be supportive but cautious
  • Defending my life choices to my deeply engrained north eastern perspective that screamed This is fucking dumb”
  • Watched lots of early interviews of Lady Gaga and Madonna and what they went through to get to where they are; convinced myself that by all trajectories of saying fuck it, I should follow in their footsteps (even though my path is in the tech world, but you get what I mean)
  • Declining many social events, dinners, and brunches, because you were applying to roles, connecting friends of friends, taking all the calls, signing up for (LA) local newsletters and hunting for their community slack channels.
  • Declining many social events, dinners, and brunches because you were balancing continuously (attempting to keep) killing it at your current job while looking for another one- which is, in fact, a full-time job
  • Initially applying for stuff I didn’t even want to do because I didn’t know what I wanted
  • Deciding that maybe I should just stay where I was and cut it out.
  • Slapping myself across the face and being like, bitch- get.it.together. Fuck that effort being chalked up to sunk cost, you.are.going.
  • Listening to a lot of Bitch Better Have My Money, Freedom, and Formation — in that order.
  • Writing out “Imma keep running cause a winner don’t quit on themselves” on a piece of paper and posting it next to my bed- because I needed to dig deep down inside to high school tactics of motivation.
  • Giving my very secure, loving, happy job and team 3 months notice with no job a handful of savings and lots of good wishes sent my way just because, sometimes you just have to say fuck it.
  • Balancing the support from the friends and family that are either:
  • A. “Fuck it! Yes, go go go! eat PB&J and find yourself”
  • B. “Ohhh.. well we support you no matter what you decide, but you know it’s very hard to find a job, and I would really advise getting something first because this is a big decision”
  • Get rid of more belongings, say bye the community you helped cultivate and very near and dear loved ones, packing life in 3 suitcases to start all over again from the base camp of one good friend’s couch.
  • Crying a lot- randomly in all forms of transit, sleep positions, and public places
  • Going to interviews with the mindset of a one night stand- give it your best at the moment and move on like they’ll never call.
  • A lot of balls, chutzpah, anger, discomfort, leaning into the “How to make Lemonade” part of me, a lot of Peter Pan-like imagination and Beyonce-like hustle

It took all of it. You want to have it all, well then you must do it all. You sacrifice the stuff that doesn’t fit into the equation for the output you are looking for and you focus on the variables that maximize the odds. And then when you do that and it doesn’t work, you re-start the equation, changing one variable at a time to test what will work. Over and over again until you fucking arrive.

That is how I got here; through sheer persistent, stubborn, brute force of chipping away at every barrier, excuse, and mental blocker that came my way for a very long time.

That is how you “Have It All” and by all standards of fun, it’s not. But it’s sure sweet AF when you arrive.

But it’s sure sweet AF when you arrive.


Originally published at www.tgimonday.co.