On a Tuesday morning in March, I sat in my car in the parking lot of my office building for forty-five minutes without going inside. This was not unusual. I had been doing some version of this — parking, sitting, dreading — for almost two years. What was unusual was what I did next.
I started the car. I drove home. I called my manager and said I was resigning, effective immediately. She asked if I was sure. I said yes. I had four thousand dollars in savings, no other job lined up, a rent payment due in three weeks, and the most settled feeling I had experienced in years.
I want to be clear: I am not recommending this. It was risky and irresponsible by most conventional measures.
What happened next was not magical or cinematic. I spent two weeks applying for jobs and being rejected. I picked up a few freelance projects to cover groceries. I had one genuinely frightening week where I wasn’t sure I could make rent.
Then I got an interview. Then another. Then a job offer — twenty percent less than what I had been making — at a small company where my manager sends the team home early on Fridays in the summer and knows everyone’s kids’ names.
That was sixteen months ago. I have not sat in a parking lot dreading anything since.
The money part got better. It usually does if you give it time.
The mornings got better first. That was the part I needed most.