You know those surprising flashes of understanding that rise to the surface when you allow yourself some stillness?

I’ve had more opportunities to sit still as of late, as Austin has experienced one of those rare cloudy, rainy, colder-than-usual winters. When the sun is out, my forty-something brain conjures up my mother’s voice begging us to get outside. When it’s raining? I tell this voice without a tremor of guilt to shut the hell up. 

What has risen to the surface is that, after decades of stumbling through what had to be the longest-ever quarter-life crisis (hello middle age!), I have finally wrestled some big questions to the ground. For those who know me well, this is an enormous statement. I’m always figuring it out, always mixing it up, always in search mode. 

Feeling at peace and at home in this life that I have created, hit me like a ton of bricks. So, I started to wonder why. Here’s what I’ve come up with.

Defining my work-life might have been accidental, but I saw an opportunity and ran with it

I realized that the opportunity to define work for myself, while it came out of an inconvenient situation, was the happiest of accidents. The space to breathe, the ‘it’s all up to me’ motivation (sometimes terror), the uniqueness of how I’ve structured how I earn a living - these are things that many people crave yet are fearful of starting. I was once too afraid to take that first step, and I have to give a shout out to the universe for that kick in the ass.  As I come to mark five years into my solo venture, I can look back at the old me and understand what how fundamental this change has been for me. I’m determined to do everything I can so that I never have to go back to a life where others define my work life. 

All of this doesn’t mean my work life fits in a cute little definable box.  I’m still playing around with what I want my “anti” career to look like. But, the essential difference between my younger and current selves, is self-trust. I trust that I will figure it out. The measures of success are mine alone, they are no longer determined by society, by family, by friends, or, even my internal voice that says “I should” do this or that. These entities can measure me if they’d like to, but I don’t care to know, or hear, about their appraisal.

I’ve gone from mentee to mentor

A few months ago, I was asked to coffee by an acquaintance of a friend. She was in her late twenties, in marketing, and was dreaming of leaving the corporate rat race and building her own freelance career. I usually say yes to blind professional dates. My philosophy is that you never know who you’ll meet, and although the fruits of the conversation may not always lead to work or a professional connection, I gain or learn something valuable from every meeting. That being said, I’m always surprised when a young person wants to pick my brain. I suppose it’s the imposter in me. Are we ever able to say that we are in a wise, fully-cooked place? It usually takes a younger person to remind me that I’ve been in the game a while and I have a perspective that they find valuable and inspiring.

During our talk, I realized that I hadn’t jumped through hoops to justify my decisions. I felt entirely at home talking with this woman about what it was like to leave the corporate world, despite the many internal and external pressures to keep the status quo. She said that she had appreciated my honesty and candor. I hope that my unintentional display of confidence enabled her to feel that her goals were possible. 

I still feel pressure, I still have doubts, I still have my little inner-toddler mucking things up once in a while. But, no matter how much I fumble through my life, I fumble proudly because it’s important to me to honor who I am and not succumb to the pressure of expectations put on me by others or my younger self. When I think about what I craved in a mentor as a young person, it’s this: someone to say, ‘I don’t have it all figured out, but I’m moving forward anyway because this is important to me.” Perhaps I would have saved myself years of grinding torment. Perhaps.

Creating space for creating has been life-changing

This third epiphany has come recently. About a year ago, I started a daily writing practice. A friend challenged me to write 500 words a day with her. Five-hundred glorious, non-marketing, non-client-related, creative words. I had long been feeling that a creative outlet was missing from my life and so I jumped in with both feet. 

One happy side-effect of my creative outlet is that it is keeping what Anne Lamott, in Bird by Bird, calls our inner “rabid dogs” at bay. Anxiety has loosened its grip on my life. For a Type A overachiever with eldest child syndrome, this has been a genuinely startling coincidence. Another surprising side-effect of this creative pursuit is that the filter through which I evaluate things that take up space in my life has gotten much more refined. Raising my hand before I’ve considered whether I should honestly say yes or no is getting much less frequent.

At a recent article club meetup I attended, the group was discussing burnout. As part of the ice-breaker, we had to reveal where we sat on the burnout scale, one being “I’m as cool as a cucumber" to five, "I want to die.” I felt confident in saying a solid two. My own answer surprised me because I honestly can't remember a time when burnout was not a significant part of my life. I credit my creative practice as a big part of breaking me out of that burnout cycle.

Indulging my inner-creative for creativity’s sake has brought me back to center. I know that writing is my vocation, my long-buried purpose. If you haven’t seen Elizabeth Gilbert’s excellent video where she dissects the differences between hobbies, jobs, careers, and vocations, watch it!  I realized after watching it that through some shrewd decision making, boundary-building, and saying no, that I had at long last gotten out of a career I hated, and I had created a job. A job that supports my daily life. Clients that I love working with. A job that has me working much less than the standard forty-hour-week.  I didn’t start out five years ago understanding what I was doing or where I’d end up. Now that I can look back, I was creating a life in which I could devote time to my vocation, come what may of my writing.