Friday was my last day at my job. Quitting wasn’t as hard as I always thought it would be, primarily because my boss had sold the place a couple months ago and after that, things weren’t quite the same.
Whenever she told me they were selling, I knew that, after two years, it was time for me to go. Where? I still don’t know. For now, that’s right here—piecing together emails and stories and, ultimately, my life. I spent a lot of time thinking and praying and trying not to think and to rely on God instead, and in the end, I felt the answer was to take it one step at a time.
Step one: leave my job.
Even though it probably seems foolish to throw away a perfectly good job with an increase in pay and bonuses and such, once I resigned and went through my last few weeks, I began to see that I’d made the right decision. Things started going downhill one way or the other, and being self-employed started looking better and better by the day.
In the end, I don’t want to work in food service for the rest of my life. I want to pursue the things I’m passionate about while I’m young and capable of doing so. I want to go out and fulfill the purpose God has for me, whatever that be may.
Which brings me to step two: begin writing my grandfather’s memoir.
While I go through this period of being unemployed and waiting on the next door to open, I know that if there’s anything I need to accomplish during this time, it’s writing my grandpa’s book. I’ve been promising to do this for 4-5 years now. I finally finished interviewing my grandpa last spring or so, and my grand plan was to actually take this year and start drafting. Fast forward to the end of the September, and surprise surprise. I’ve written exactly 0.0 words.
This is a daunting task, one for which I’ve felt utterly unprepared and unqualified for this whole time. But this is also one of those things that I never really will be prepared for, that I won’t know what I’m getting into until I’m knee-deep in it.
And, at the risk of sounding morbid, I may have 60 years to dilly-dally with this, but my grandpa doesn’t. I want to bring this book to fruition while he still has time to enjoy it.
So the plan is to devote all the time and energy I was giving my job to writing my grandpa’s memoir and working on projects for my small press—and mostly importantly, really clearing my mind and my schedule to spend time with the Lord and seek Him on what to do next.
My hope is to include y’all on this journey as much as I can, primarily to document this season of my life and to share the lessons I learn with those who are going through something similar. I can’t guarantee timely installments or interesting stories, but these emails do come from the heart. Maybe in the next one I’ll tell a little more about how and why I made the decision I did.
Until then, I'd love to hear from you! What season of life are you in now? How can I be praying for you? What lessons are you learning?
