Standing Up Straight

A year ago this month, I lost the position I thought proved I had finally made it in this industry.

After a Friday morning calendar invite ended with my layoff, I spent weeks floundering, lying on the floor of my writing studio with Fleetwood Mac cranked up to full volume in a vain attempt to drown out the feeling that I had somehow failed. I stared at the ceiling while The Chain played on repeat, wondering who the hell I was anymore.

I had spent decades dreaming about writing full-time for a publication like Outdoor Life, and I loved introducing myself as an OL staff writer. I read that magazine out loud to my Daddy when I was barely old enough to ride a bicycle without training wheels. Those pages helped shape me as a hunter, a writer, and in a lot of ways, the person I am today.

Landing a full-time staff job there felt like arriving. Losing it felt a lot like disappearing.

But after the dust and the panic settled, I felt something else entirely.

Relief.

Relief isn’t the emotion most people expect after losing their dream job. It wasn’t the one I was expecting either.

I loved the people I worked with. I loved being part of a team. I got giddy every time I saw my name in a byline. I also loved the steady paycheck, the health insurance, and retirement account that came along with the title.

But I felt like I was constantly playing a game of Twister, trying to bend my voice to write for the algorithm. I produced content because a calendar demanded it. Instead of chasing stories that fired me up, I’d spend days writing deals posts, updating affiliate links, or trying to shape something around whatever keyphrase Google decided to reward that week.

I loved that job. I also hated it in ways I didn’t fully understand until I was outside of it.

Sometimes you don’t realize how much you’ve been bending until you finally get to stand up straight. But standing up straight hurts when you’ve been hunched over long enough.

Freedom sounds great. And I wish I could tie this whole thing up with a cute little metaphorical bow about living my authentic creative life. But the truth is that freedom is terrifying.

The inspirational gurus don’t warn you that the same independence that lets you chase the stories you care about also means you are responsible for finding the money to keep chasing them. And nobody told me that freedom would come with so much dang paperwork.

I don’t miss the algorithm. I don’t miss writing things I didn’t care about because a dashboard told me I needed to.

I miss being part of a team. I miss being an integral part of a legacy publication. I miss having my name tied to all the greats who have had bylines there. And I really miss not wondering whether the next month will be a good month or a “maybe I should start selling pickles and preserves at the farmers’ market” month.

I’ve also learned that I’m not above bending over to pick up a dollar when I see one. Literal bending. Metaphorical bending. I want my writing to matter. But I also want to pay my mortgage, put gas in the truck, and buy ammo.

I don’t have the security I thought I had a year ago. But that security was an illusion anyway. I don’t think security is the right word for a full-time job when you realize your salary, retirement, and health insurance can disappear with a calendar invite.

That’s the thing I learned this year. Every kind of work comes with a cost. For the time being, this brand of freedom doesn’t give me sticker shock when I look at the price tag.

Because it feels good to stand up straight. Even if my knees are sometimes a little shaky.