I quit my job yesterday. I say "quit," but I mean "gave them five weeks' notice." I'm the only one who does most of the things I do there, so I wanted to give them adequate time to figure out what to do about it. Plus, I was coming dangerously close to being assigned long projects, and I really didn't want to commit to something I knew I wouldn't be able to finish. So now, it's out there, I'm leaving. I superfuckingpsyched!!!!!
But, I got all nervous and sad before I said anything to my boss, as I always do before I quit anything. Because I can't help but feel that by quitting, I'm giving up in some way. I worry that I'll let someone down.
When I was in 7th (maybe 8th?) grade, I wanted to quit gymnastics. I was pretty into it--going 4 times a week for three hours each time. That said, I pretty much sucked. I mean, I was much better at gymnastics than a member of the general public, but, as far as my team went, I was second to last. A big part of it was that I was extremely tall for a gymnast. A possibly bigger part was that I was a combination of scared and lazy. And I knew this. I knew that my quitting gymnastics would be no loss to the gymnastics world. But still, I feared telling my mom... asking my mom if it would be ok to stop. The thought never crossed my mind that perhaps my parents would be thrilled to not shell out the hundreds of dollars every few weeks that my classes cost. I approached my mom one morning. I started crying before I could even say anything. I was so worried of disappointing her! She obviously freaked out, wondering what was wrong, so that when I finally spat out that I wanted to quit gymnastics, she was understandably (now, viewing this as an adult) relieved. And so I stopped going to gymnastics. And that was it. Easy peasy. As is not uncommon for me, I had freaked out over something that ended up being nothing.
I also quit grad school. This was even more stressful because I felt I had to quit to so many people. And therefore, I felt I was disappointing so many people. First, my parents. That wasn't too bad, given that they'd known I'd hated grad school from the very beginning. But, I knew (or imagined, anyway) that they were a little upset that they wouldn't be able to tell their friends that their daughter had a Ph. D.
Then, my roommates. I was living in Spain, doing my dissertation research, and dropping out of school meant that I would have to move back to the U.S. Dropping out made me feel like I looked like some kind of annoying American dilettante. (I mean, I guess, technically, I was!) My roommates were sad to see me go, but were by no means crushed.
Then I had to quit to my advisor. I called him from Spain. Again with the waterworks before I even started speaking! I honestly don't remember what he said, but do remember that he told me about someone in his family (his wife's mother?) recently dying. Looking back, I'm sure he was disappointed, as he'd invested a fair amount of time in me. But, he also hadn't invested the same amount of time in me as in other of his students. Our research interests didn't really line up and he probably sensed that I was less enthused than everyone else at the program. Other people/entities I had to quit: various deans, the chair of the department, the United States Government (they were funding me). Those were ok. At that point, I was a pro at quitting grad school.
And now I quit my job. Before I did it, I thought for a while about quitting. I quit a lot of things. What does this say about me? Is it a lack of commitment? Do I not try hard enough? Maybe, but also, I have a very strong "shit or get off the pot" mentality. If something isn't working for me, I try to make it work. If that doesn't work, I bail. There is no sense in continuing to do something that you don't enjoy. Life is too short for it to be constant sacrifice.
When I returned to the States and quit to my advisor in person, he said something to me that will forever stick in my mind. When I said to him, as one of my reasons for leaving, that I thought a person should be happy in her personal life and her professional life, he said, "I don't really think that's true. I think it's ok to be just happy in one." THAT IS SO WRONG TO ME! I am not one to settle, and to think that I would settle either in my personal relationships or professional life was horrifying and incomprehensible.
Which brings me back to quitting my job. I hate my job. I took it when I first moved to Los Angeles and was out of money. I had recently dropped out of grad school and then accepted this job that was very much like grad school (except it was a lot easier and paid a lot better). I hated it from the get-go and plotted my escape for 3.5 years. The problem was that I had no idea what I wanted to do. I finally decided on going to school for acupuncture and Chinese medicine. That's another blog post in itself, so I'll skip over that decision process for now. The point is, that after three and a half years, I finally felt very confident about what I wanted to do with myself. I feared quitting to my boss because she's the sweetest lady ever. I had assumed (probably correctly) that my workload would simply be transferred to her. She does not have time for that sort of thing, so I felt bad about doing it to her. And I worried, once again, about letting her down. I had to stand at my desk for a while and psych myself up. Then I went to her office and told her my plans, being careful not to dis my job in the process, which is hard because I bitch and moan to friends about it on a near-daily basis. She was great though. Very maternal. She got a little verklempt. She said she needed a minute to let it sink in. She told me how she totally understood and she thought it was important for me to try new things while I was young (ha!) and unencumbered. She was, all in all, perfect.
And I got a little choked up, but otherwise kept it together.
