Jobless?
Let’s take a few steps back.
Picture it, quarterly self evaluations and reviews.
The question posed is something like, “how would you like to grow personally?”
I respond with words centered around my gratitude for how much I’d been allowed to flourish personally within the space. Within eight months of being employed I’d been given permission to travel to Marrakech for a retreat, to New York for the MONFON book release, to Baltimore for Brioxy’s leadership cohort, allotted a flexible schedule to sit on Essie’s Bailout committee, and the list goes on and on. I’d also been given a stipend during the first quarterly review to pursue a writing course. They went above and beyond to invest in my longstanding interest. This kind of treatment was absolutely foreign to me, considering what I’d experienced before I came to work for them.
With all of this said, I began to mull over my future as a, “young professional” in the “arts.” I inquired about next steps professionally, what the next step would be within the organization, and how to leverage my current skills with new skills in operations and development.
I wrote these things in my self review, and during the in-person review with my Supervisor and the Director what I’d written became the topic of conversation. I was given the opportunity to work through this and some other issues, or to make a decision to [fill in the blank].
I responded with, “I love the mission and I am grateful.” The Director kindly let me know that, “it is one thing to love the mission, but if one doesn’t love the day to day tasks, that isn’t living.” With that being said, she asked me to, “make a decision.”
In that very moment my reality was shaped by all of the air leaving the room. There were two sets of colorful eyes looking back at me. The universe was nudging my right shoulder and I heard my consciousness pose the question, “are you going to continue to lie?” Lie out of fear that I had wasted these folks time, lie about what I could tolerate to earn income, lie so that they wouldn’t have to pick up any additional work my absence created, lie about my enthusiasm for the day to day.
I responded to the Director with, “I can stay on until December.” Before I even realized the magnitude of what I’d said. My spirit had registered and answered the question for me. The universe had asked my spirit not my occupation, relationships, finances, no it asked my spirit to be truthful. A house divided cannot stand, and I knew instinctively that if I were to espouse with my mouth that I was happy just to pacify the situation, I would be trapped in yet another cycle.
With that said we have to understand the repercussions of what we say and how slow or fast the universe can move. The Director’s response was, “I have children that are your age, and life is really too short to not do something you love everyday, with that said, I’m giving you thirty days.”
I was petrified after that, and I cried right there in that review. Not a big ugly cry but one that embodied the surface level processing of acceptance, grief, paranoia, love, and a whole bunch of other shit.
When people love you enough to tell you to leave, that's some powerful shit. When people don’t hold your creativity, productivity, physical and mental real estate hostage, them is the golden ones. I respect that more than she may ever know and I thank them for holding space.
Can we talk about the symbolism in her offering me thirty more days or one month? Which equated to nine months. All I could see was rebirth. I cannot forget to add how gracious she was to extend the entire network to me, said I could reach out to anyone I thought would be a good contact throughout my journey, said she would write letters of recommendation, all of the things. Everyone I reached out to responded and offered to be there for me in their own capacity.
Lets just be honest, I was growing in the opposite direction of who I’d signed up to be. All of the trips and soul searching they’d held space for, that I budgeted for, researched, and I espoused with my mouth I needed the universe to show me. Well it showed me and I would have been some kind of hard headed to ignore.
Their incentives became initiatives in my life, and simply put: I got new legs Lieutenant Dan.
The best way for me to describe this point in my life would be that I am leaning with my upper back and head on the gate of my past profession, feet wider than hip distance apart, gazing at the many paths that I can take ahead. Roads are a recurring motif in my daydreams and visions. I saw a version of this road in undergrad. I was grappling with my interest and what I thought I needed to be for my community. This road communicated that my path would not be as paved or as organized as an academic track would deem necessary, but nonetheless powerful, fulfilled, and created just for me and those that would follow.