Someone, somewhere, once said, “There’s a big difference between quitting while you’re ahead, and just quitting.”

That person is very, very smart. They would probably agree that my choices, lately, have strategically played right into their very smart utterance. You’re all, “What? What’s she saying? Metaphor?”

Nope. Literal.

Last Thursday (a week ago today) I put in my notice at Tretorn. My last day will be July 18th. (And Kindle is mostly to blame, and I’ll tell you why later.)

A week later, I type those words and it terrifies me. Mostly because James pointed out that I’ll no longer have insurance, but partially because Going Back To School For Real, Full Time is a very serious undertaking. One that I need to now buckle down and get moving on.

I’m going for my MFA in Creative Writing. This announcement has split people right down the middle, into two schools of reaction. Reaction 1: “You write?” Reaction 2 (of which my mother is the tallest standing member): “Well, kiddo, it’s about damn time.”

If you’re in the first reaction pool… Yes, I write. I like to think I do it rather well. Better, anyway, than I can say I bowl. Also better than I am at doing math in my head.

If you’re in the second reaction pool… Well, I know. And I’m sure you’re also thinking about all the stories I’ve told you, and all the support you’ve shown me, and all the times you wondered why it took me a week to respond to your e-mail, only to get a novella in your inbox, one it took you a week to then read, but you forgive me because it was so excellently written. Let it be known, People of The Second Reaction Pool: I could not have done this without every single one of you, or without every single little nice thing you’ve ever said about me or my writing. (And, sure, some of the mean things. Because it gives me stuff to write about.)

I know what you’re thinking now… But why leave Tretorn?

Well, let’s be really honest here for a second: I was never going to Grow Up to be a retail store manager. I was going to learn how to do my job the best I possibly could, then transition into a corporate setting where I could develop training programs. I wanted to work with Cate Hewett, who has (since her departure from PUMA) morphed from my Professional Mentor into my Life Idol. (Coincidentally, thanks to e-mail, I get to work with Cate anyway, we just chat about writing and getting married, two things that she likes as much as I like.)

Cate left the company. James got the job at Marvel. I learned I was no longer eligible to work on Special Projects for PUMA, and anyway James was not thrilled with the idea of me Globe-Trotting for the first 11 months after we were married.

Fair enough.

But then we also moved to the Suburbs (which is sort of OK, I’m still sorting it all out) and I’m suddenly Getting Married (actively, it’s an active action you take, over the course of 500+ days, that requires a lot of time and thought and feelings about things like doilies and stationary). And then one bad thing happened at work, and then another. And then another, and before I knew it, I suddenly didn’t feel safe there anymore. I felt like I was being attached by people. People who used to be My People. While moving to the suburbs. With my Future-In-Laws. After realizing my professional trajectory with the company was likely not going to happen.

I think “dysphoria” is the proper term for how I felt, though I probably spelled it wrong.

I was quite miserable for quite some time, studying things I would not be using in the career I was no longer going to chase. I was giving up Manhattan, and My Own Space and (most traumatically and recently) My Last Name.

It was a lot. And I was, put simply, good at my job but no longer actively engaged in it. At least not the way I had always been engaged in my work, which is to say that I used to spring out of bed in the morning, thrilled at the prospect that I got to spend the whole day helping people– wait for it– shop for shoes. It, really, was the perfect job for me through this phase of my life.

This is where Kindle comes in. If PUMA wants to blame any one thing on my departure, they should call Kindle Headquarters and give them the business. I put the Kindle App. on my iPhone and LO! Did you know that Public Domain books are free?

I started reading again. I read Around the World in 80 Days. I re-read Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. I read Sherlock Holmes (almost all of them) and The Wind in the Willows and The Wizard of Oz and Nora Ephron’s I Feel Bad About My Neck.

My imagination yawned… stretched itself out again. Perked up. Asked for some coffee. And then for a pen.

I sat down and wrote for the first time, and I could feel my voice struggle a little to get the words on paper without them feeling clumsy, or bumping into one another in a jostled sort of way. But it was all there, my creativity and my language and my funny, odd sense of humor. My characters, who had I guess been napping all this time, were just as charming and chatty as ever.

I realized that I didn’t want to work in Retail as a Store Manager anymore. I have nothing against Retail, and I’m immensely, incalculably grateful for every single day I was allowed to spend at PUMA. But it is very much time for me to start the next chapter of my life.

So I put in my notice and filled up my Kindle. I’ll worry about insurance later. I have a couple more weeks to figure out how to roll over my 401K. I’m starting from scratch. I thought it’d be a lot more traumatic than it is, but instead, for the first time in a very long time…

… I can hear the breeze whispering stories into my ear, and the clouds take on shapes I’ve been blind to for so long. My heart beats faster when I come up with a really good snippet of dialogue, and my imagination just runs and laughs and spins and jumps. It’s free.

I’m free.

And that’s not all! But, I’m not in a place where I can blow the rest of my plans up to everyone yet. For now, I’m getting applications together and looking for a part time job, where I would like to specialize in Excellent Customer Service.

I’m also giving myself two full weeks off, from July 18- August 1. Because I am so far past Exhausted that I wouldn’t even know the breaking point if I were able to sidle back up next to it.

Yes it’s scary and a little, perhaps, immature. But if I don’t chase my dreams now, I’ll always be too timid. I’m not allowing myself any more space to do things that aren’t specifically What I Love.

Well, What I Love and, also, laundry. Because someone always has to do the laundry.

xo

-M.