I Thought Quitting My Job Would Make Me Happy

But I was wrong

My birthday is coming up on October 31st (or has already passed depending on when this is published). Halloween, a day of fun and costumes, and candy and I couldn’t care less.

“I’ve never been the I don’t celebrate birthdays type. Usually, there’s reminders and countdowns and putting together a costume… but this year none of that… it’s the least excited I’ve been about my bday since 3–0 but I had people around me that wanted to celebrate me and so we did! This year feels like I forgot to remember.”- A post I wrote on my personal Facebook page which recieved a total of 4 likes.

Honestly, the lack of excitement about my birthday was a little alarming. I’ve been so absorbed in writing, focused on the goal of submitting 30 articles in 30 days, that I got comfortable with the feeling of not being okay. In August and part of September, I was sad. I wasn’t okay then and I knew it. But things changed and I learned to move past the things that were making me sad. I was determined to be happy and while I’ve had days where I felt happy, those days were not consistent.

When I started the challenge, I was just distracted enough not to notice, until there were five days until my birthday. Usually, when there are less than 5-days until my birthday my enthusiasm increases as the day approaches. I get kind of excited, not in the same way kids do, but rather I start to feel a little joy knowing that I’m about to be showered with birthday wishes, cards, gifts, money, and cake all in the name of celebrating me. It’s usually a low-key day, but always a good one. I actually love going to work on my birthday and seeing the kids all adorable and dressed up in their costumes. This year the thought of a costume never even crossed my mind.

Recently my friend took to social media and confessed her struggles with depression. As someone who always preaches about positive thinking, I automatically started to type out some advice. I started to tell her to “make a list of 10 things you like about yourself and try to focus on those things and read the list every day.” For some reason, this was the first piece of advice that came to mind. I think it was my inner Lisa Nichols coming out. She’s my favorite motivational speaker. I haven’t listened to her in months. She’s too happy and positive. I’m not in the right state of mind to listen to Lisa right now.

Just as quickly as I started to type out this piece of advice, I deleted it, and just told her I loved her instead. It felt hypocritical of me to give such advice knowing I would’ve struggled to create that same list about myself. I’m not quite depressed, but I’m headed there. I’m in this weird in-between limbo, somewhere between happiness and depression, but closer to the latter.

When it comes to being happy I often think back to 2016 and 2020. Both those years I found myself unemployed for different reasons. I also found myself at my absolute happiest and fully enjoying my life. It was a euphoric life-is-amazing type of happiness. I quit my job, trying to replicate those feelings of happiness. So far the mission has been unsuccessful.

There was a freedom in being unemployed. I got to spend my days as I pleased, spending time with family and friends, exercising, and writing or creating and editing videos for YouTube. I wasn’t going on extravagant vacations, but I was still having the time of my life. In both cases, once I went back to work, that happiness faded and I no longer had the time or energy to work on my creative projects.

I thought that was the key. Quit my job, be creative, be happy. But it hasn’t been so simple. It’s been an emotional roller coaster. And I’m left wondering why is now so different than before? Why am I not happy? I was free from the shackles of the 9–5, I was writing, I was creating, but I wasn’t happy.

The answer became more clear when I responded to a writing prompt. The prompt asked what is community to you? It was a question that made me reflect and I had to be really honest with myself. When I decided to respond to that prompt, I didn’t expect to write something that would smack me in the face with a truth that I’d been in denial about for a while.

In the article Roaming These Streets Alone, I wrote:

Where is my community? By that definition, my neighbors are my community, but I hardly speak to them. By that definition, black people are my community, but that’s much too broad.

Where is the mention of love, comradery, support? Things that are missing in my life. I am on my own, which as an ambivert, the introvert side of me barely noticed, but the extrovert side has been ignoring the whispers of that truth for a while now. Recently that whisper became louder and much more difficult to ignore.

That’s the issue, I am alone, and writing that article forced me to not only admit it to myself but to also face how it is affecting me. I have no real-life community at the moment. Everyone is busy wrapped up in their own lives and I’m left on my own with no support system beyond my online writing community. It was a hard truth to come to terms with.

Back in 2016, I had more family around me, my best friend lived three blocks away and I made a new friend that I met online. It was a small community but they were there. I was good. Last year most of the people I knew were either not working or working from home so spending time with family and friends happened effortlessly. Again it was small but I had a community.

Fast forward to present day and all the people that I once had in my life are scattered. I quit my job at a time when everyone else was going back to work. Everyone was busy and I wasn’t busy enough.

Things have changed, my family is shrinking in size. A sad truth that as you get older, you lose more people, and I’ve seen illness, age, and accidents take some of my family away. My best friend, who barely feels like much of a friend anymore has moved farther away and has become so busy that I’m left out of the equation. My only connection to anyone who is or was once a friend is through social media.

When I was working, I had the feeling of friendship and community with my co-workers. Though I love them and think they’re all cool people, rarely do work friends translate into real friendships. I’ve had a few different jobs and learned over the years, that no matter how cool you are with people when you work with them those friendships don’t usually last past the duration of your employment together. You go from seeing each other almost every day to seeing each other only through the lens of social media.

I took a leap of faith and jumped headfirst into this whole no-job thing. I was going to see how long I could go and have faith that the Universe would take care of me. I was prepared to maybe go broke in the process and if that was the case I was fine with going back to work. What I wasn’t expecting were these feelings of loneliness. That wasn’t something I was prepared for.

After 4-months, I made the decision to go back to work at least on a part-time basis. I was blessed to find a lowkey teaching job, part-time, and close to home. The schedule and location are perfect because the job doesn’t take over my whole day the way my previous job did, which was a 12-hour day (two-hour commute each way). It still leaves me with time in my day to write. It’s only been a couple of days but I’m really liking it. Everyone is really chill and it isn’t stressful the way my previous teaching jobs have been. It’s the type of job that makes me want to give teaching full-time another shot. But it’s new and shiny so we’ll see.

I know these new co-workers will probably not end up being my best friends, but going back out into the world, interacting with people and children, and doing a job that I know I’m good at, I hope will be a step towards getting me back to happiness.

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