alexis in the city

non-retirement

I’ve known too many sad retired people, and a recent study shows that moms who work (outside the home) are happier than those who don’t - but I have a different reason for not wanting to retire: I really love to work. I discovered this as I wandered the country listlessly over Christmas break.

Ok, not really - we had a great time seeing family and friends in DC, Estes Park and Breckenridge. But there was an undertone of un-productivity winding throughout the week I took “off.”

I know you can successfully work from the road - I do it quite often when I travel and spent three months traveling Asia while working. And I also know that it’s crucial to take some downtime and relax. I was just thrilled at the end of that relaxation time to be able to start working again. By Monday afternoon both Ryan and I had said something along the lines of - “I really missed this!”

Sure, part of this simply has to do with craving routine, but it also has to do with the energy and fulfillment that comes with working toward something enjoyable and productive. I hope that one day (in the semi-near future?!) my work won’t have to be so closely tied to earned income and my career pursuits can exist independently of the necessity for a salary. So in a sense, yes, I want to retire.

But I know that I could never - as my sister says - “faff about.” I need a project; a goal; a full schedule. Because I am the girl who, when living in Italy for a year and unable to work, put in a nearly full-time schedule as a volunteer at the newspaper and radio station. I’ve had paying jobs where people haven’t shown up as much ;).

Overcoming the Summer of my Discontent

Now is the winter of our discontent
Made glorious summer by this son of York;
And all the clouds that low’r'd upon our house
In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.

Somewhere between not knowing where I’m going to live in a couple months, and losing my job, it hit me: I’m not freaking out. This is incredibly, fundamentally, anti-Alexis. Which can only mean that somehow in the past year or two since my last existential crisis I’ve hit some stride of contentedness. I’m sure it’s a combination of a lot of things: a deepened spirituality, a supportive community, increased financial stability, and probably a dose of good ol’ fashioned maturity. The Alexis of five or even three years ago would be in meltdown mode by now - so of course I’m bracing for that and worried it’ll happen down the road. But considering the massive amount of upheaval in my life right now I am somehow managing to not be curled up in the middle of the floor, sucking my thumb.

So back to the upheaval. Ryan and I started talking a few months ago about moving sometime this year. The exact where, when, how - and every other necessary detail - are still a question mark for a number of reasons due to other things we’re dealing with. That uncertainty alone would typically have been enough to send me into a hissy fit. Combine that with the need to cover other bases in case we do pull up our San Francisco stakes - like applying for schools - and the necessity of not losing sight of my commitments here, and you’ve got the perfect storm for a change-loving, uncertainty-hating gal like me.

Then last week I lost my job. Kind of out of the blue. Fortunately, I’d maintained my client relationships while working for Signpost so I had a safety net but nevertheless, I’d assumed that if I ever did lose my job I’d be reduced to the thumb-sucking, fetal ball of hot mess mentioned above. I’m not at all ruling out that this could still happen. But so far I’ve enjoyed re-discovering the flexibility of being completely autonomous. I think I’m going to go back to only working Monday-Thursday!

Three day weekends aside, I didn’t join Signpost for the great pay and shortened work weeks (c’m on, it’s a startup). I joined it because even though I could make more money and work less while working for myself, I wanted to be a part of a team again. I wanted to collaborate and have inside jokes with my coworkers and help determine the direction of a company. I still might want that, but I’m not worried about finding another job. I’m not even worried that I can’t really start looking until we figure out what’s going on in other areas of our life.

I’ve thought about just going to seminary full-time and pursuing a hospital chaplaincy internship like I was going to before I accepted the Signpost job. But I’m not worried that I don’t know what school I’d attend or that last year I turned down the internship program into which I was accepted.

And all of this not-worrying has me worried. It’s so unlike me. While I suspect that that thumbsucking girl in the fetal position is still inside me, I hope my new-found contentedness in the midst of chaos will continue to drown her out. I don’t have time for her anyway; I’m too busy being not-worried.

The five year unPlan

When I was ten, I decided what I wanted to be when I grew up - and then proceeded to eventually do it. When I was 16, I picked out what college I wanted to go to - and by the time I was 17 I’d applied and been accepted. When I broke up with my highschool boyfriend (now a dear friend of mine) I vowed I wouldn’t go through that again - so the next guy I dated was the guy I married. Obviously not all of my plans and decisions have been wise, but throughout the course of my entire life - for as long as I can remember anyway - I’ve been a planner. And the things I’ve planned, the courses I’ve laid for myself, have been fulfilled with precision.

Which makes what I’m about to say even more surprising.

continue reading »

My journey to seminary or why I waited seven years to go to grad school

Seven years ago when I was getting ready to graduate from undergrad, I would’ve sworn up and down that I would never go back to school (and in fact did on many occasions). I’d loved college but as with many things in my life before I was older and wiser, saw it as a means to an end; something to be gotten through - and enjoyed as much as possible - but finished quickly so I could move on to the next. I went through a full Bachelor’s degree in 2.5 years and eagerly moved on to my career. (It’s a little more complicated than that, but you can peruse other posts to get the full story :-) .

It didn’t take me long to realize that I’d never committed to anything for longer than 2.5 years, and my career would hardly be an exception. I spent about three years as a live TV news producer and have spent about three years running my own business as a social strategy consultant. And throughout nearly all of these years - with the exception, perhaps, of my early years in the news biz - I’ve been seeking what I want to be when I grown up.

continue reading »

Three years on from “I Quit”

As Ryan reminded me the other day, this week marks the third anniversary of us quitting the last jobs we held and going into business for ourselves. For those of you who didn’t know us during that phase of our lives, I was a producer with Current TV and Ryan was a product manager for the gaming division of CNet.

I find myself admonishing people not to do a lot of the things we’ve done - get married so young, move to a new city with no jobs and no place to live, get two dogs at the same time - and this is no exception. Quitting our stable, relatively well-paying jobs for no “good” reason, within days of eachother has been one of our bolder, crazier decisions. Yet as with most of these types of decisions we’ve made, it continues to work out in ways I don’t expect, ways that are happily surprising (and not-so-happily surprising, to be fair).  I’m not sure I’d do anything differently. … Well, other than give ourselves a bit of a safety net by staggering our timing by more than a few days.

So what the hell were we thinking?

continue reading »