I Quit My Day Job

Call it a first step in believing in myself.

"I quit." I have wanted to utter those words, for different reasons, for a very, very long time.

Why did I do it? Because it's time.

I didn't like who I was at work, or after work. Angry. Chip on my shoulder. Not being my true self. And definitely not doing what I really want to be doing.

Negativity saps creativity. And even if my anger is justifiable (I could list all the reasons that have wastefully occupied my brain for far too long), it's not worth my time or my energy. Or yours.

It leaves control in someone else's hands. But I should be the one driving my life. My day job doesn't keep me from writing. I do. It's time to take back the wheel.

There were signs from the universe that I chose to no longer ignore.  Here are just three in the week that led up to my decision:

• Monday morning, February 24, while waiting at a traffic light outside my office, I hit skip on my iPod (always in Shuffle mode) and REO Speedwagon's "Time for Me to Fly" comes on. The light turns green.
• Later that same Monday, I read the news that Harold Ramis passed away, whose comedy influenced my life more than any other writer's. He left a body of work that would make anyone proud. Where's mine?
• Friday evening, February 28, leaving the office my iPod serves up a random podcast, And Then There's That, co-hosted by my friend Dennis Lane, a prolific writer himself who was taken from us last May. On the day before Dennis passed, we bumped into each other at a Starbucks where he asked me how Click! the web series was going (I'm one of the writers). Dennis always did encourage me to write. And he still does.

Needless to say, I don't see all these moments as coincidences.

So I wrote a short, cordial resignation letter. No burning bridges. No Norma Rae moment. No dance suitable for YouTube. I just said thanks and goodbye.

I have enough savings to take off 60 days. It may not seem like much, but two months of solid writing equates to two or three years of writing bursts on the nights and weekends I can muster the energy. After that? We'll just have to wait and see.

So here's to the journey! I finally bought a ticket.

Holy shit. I quit my day job.