Bursting
Just like a swollen bud, eventually splitting apart for the ever growing pressure of what it has kept safe all winter, my life is bursting open.
I have handed in my letter of resignation at the newsroom in which I have been working for over five years. A structure that used to fit me like a glove, had come to feel ever more constricting over time. Had it shrunk? Had I outgrown it?
Both.
This will be the first time in my life in which I am going to work only ‘for myself’. That I will step out of my house, arms wide open, and tell life: ‘bring it on, I’m ready’.
Or rather, no: this isn’t the first time. I have in fact soms experience with blind faith and leaps into the unknown. My very first job was one I didn’t even apply for and that was literally offered to me by someone who came to call at our door — a fun story I never mind digging up.
What is true, though, is that I always had some sort of safetynet, if not a material one at least a psychological one. Or I tried to switch from one sort of safety net to another as soon as I could. Not this time. I might very well never go for fixed employment again.
(Except for the writing classes I am teaching at the academy of arts since the beginning of this school year, that is. Those simply continue and give me great joy. For some reason they don’t feel constricting at all, quite the contrary: I experience great freedom and creativity there. With this, I have now hopefully reassured my principle, who might have spilled some of his morning coffee reading this blog.)
But what a process of growth it’s been, for one who as little as three years ago simply couldn’t image that there actually were people who preferred the insecurity of an independent career to the safety of steady employment. I am surprising myself here, frankly.
It still feels a little shaky, like leaving the house without a coat. There is a chill breeze. But the sun is breaking through the clouds, and I feel I’m ready to go.
P.S. My life isn’t the only one bursting open. At the very moment while I am writing this, my little sister is giving birth: her belly is opening to let two ripe little fruits make their way into the world. For both of us, today is the start of a new chapter. And what a ride that will be.
