The time I went against the grain.

The time I went against the grain.

Expectations.
Judgements.
Explanations. 
I was 22.  I had a degree.  I had a job with a fancy title in the industry I was interested in.  Granted, the job wasn’t at all related to what I knew how to do, but I figured the proximity to what I loved would make me happy.  It didn’t.
I had a 401K and insurance.  I had flexible hours, and I could wear jeans to work.  The people I worked with were nice.  I didn’t fit in.  Something just didn’t feel right.  I tried to force it because there were all these thoughts floating through my head.  How do I explain what I want to another person when I didn’t quite understand it myself.
I was living in my parents’ attic.  I knew there would be questions.  I knew there would be judgements. I could feel my heart pulsing in my throat when I sat in the meeting with my boss to tell her that I was leaving my big girl job to work in a tanning bed.
Yes.  I went from being an Account Executive with a newspaper to wiping sweat from tanning beds by choice.

I wasn’t hired as a manager.  I didn’t take the job with the expectation I’d some day become the manager.  Let me make that clear.  I took the job knowing that I would be no better than an 18 year old working part time in college.  Except I was full time.  There was no insurance.  I had to trust myself that I wasn’t making a huge mistake.
I can’t explain it.  I wish I could.  I just trusted my gut.  When I saw the listing it was just something that felt right.  It felt like something I would enjoy.  It felt like something I would be good at.  
So I applied.  I got offered the hourly position, and I quit my “big girl” job.
Within 30 days, I was the manager.  And I loved my job.  I loved the people I got to see daily.  I loved being encouraged to be my peppy, happy self.  I fit.  I was satisfied.  And I was tired, no exhausted, at the end of the day.  And it felt so good.
Occasionally someone from my high school would come in to tan.  And I would be lying if I told you I wasn’t embarrassed.  They’d be wearing their fancy suits obviously on their way home from their fancy jobs, and there I was signing them into a tanning bed for 11 minutes.  The worry of judgement was real for me.  But at the same time–I didn’t care.  I was happy.
I didn’t fit in the mold.  I saw all of my friends doing the things they were supposed to be doing, and I didn’t quite understand why I was just perfectly happy to work in a tanning bed.  The conversations would come up (you know the ones–when you haven’t seen someone in a long time and they ask you what you’re doing these days), and I felt this rush of fear in trying to justify why I wanted to do what I was doing.  I wasn’t doing it as a part-time/in between job.  It was what I wanted.
The point of this story is–I did what I wanted despite the fear of judgement and expectation.  And I was happy.  I paid my bills.  And I even ended up with insurance when I became a manager.  I know I got lucky–and I’m not saying run off and quit your job.  But in the end–isn’t being happier what matters?
It was while I was at that job that I wrote my first book.  I wasn’t creatively drained at the end of the day–and I wasn’t exhausted from hating my life.  I was electrically charged and full of inspiration.  And I was happy.  And I made the time.
Isn’t that what matters?  We all get so caught up in what other people will think that we forget to make ourselves happy.
disclaimer: don’t try to stalk me 😉  I no longer work for either of these companies, and I no longer live in that town.