No Longer Writing in My Parents' Basement

"I think I want to quit my job,” I said to my parents, while 1,245 miles away from my job. They looked at me, careful not to say too much, so I heard nothing. In my mind I’m wondering how to articulate that yes, quitting my job during a time when so many can’t find work, losing my health insurance during a global pandemic is a tremendous risk, but staying put is riskier. I don’t say that. Instead I say something like, “I’ve been having to spend a lot of time alone and when I’m able to quiet my mind, I feel everything around me telling me it’s time to go.” Yikes, did that make sense? How do I tell my parents that when I was sick for a month and couldn’t see friends, couldn’t make any human contact, I connected with the trees I could see from my balcony? How do I tell them I spent my summer alone watching the birds and noticing how they fly with no map? Does this sound crazy? Have I accidentally gone mad?

No.

How do I tell them that I would absolutely go mad if I had to stay at a job that was slowly, but surely, draining the life out of me? I saw my future if I stayed. Who knows how long this pandemic would go on, so who knows how long I would live quietly in 400 square feet? Who knows how long the job market would remain bleak, so who knows how long I would have to stay at my life-draining job? I no longer felt connected to the city I once loved, and who knows how long I would be on auto-pilot there if I stayed? Not living, but surviving.

I remembered who I once was. I was bold and lively. I lived with zest. I remembered how I worked three jobs so I could spend a semester in Europe, and while there I decided to graduate college early so I could return as soon as possible. I remembered traveling, living, working, laughing abroad for as long as I could before eventually coming home with little money, but months worth of stories. I remembered packing up my car and moving to the city I would soon need to part ways with. Beginning in my aunt’s basement, moving to a two bedroom with a peculiar roommate, then finding my sweet studio with the balcony. It was everything I wanted. I remembered starting my job and being so excited it was primarily remote. Then finding this amazing cafe/bar workspace that was filled with other remote workers. Coffee during the day, then beers come 4:30 PM. I had created the life I wanted from the ground up.

Then the pandemic came. And the small company I worked for took advantage of that, of their vulnerable demographic. Oh. Suddenly, I don’t feel so good. And suddenly, my workspace is closed so people don’t spread germs. And suddenly, I’m spending all of my time in 400 square feet. And oh. Suddenly, I am actually sick. “Stay home. Do not leave your apartment. If you notice yourself turning blue, call 911,” my doctor said. But I wore a mask and I have asthma and I have no one to take care of me. And oh. I’m 25, and suddenly, I feel like I am going to die alone. Already.

And maybe it all happened because I wasn’t as connected to the life I had built as I thought I was. Maybe I had just gone through the motions of what I was supposed to do and was having fun checking the boxes. But who even wrote this checklist? And I had never anticipated moving back to my parents' house, the empty-nester home they just bought, far away from where I grew up, but maybe that’s exactly what I needed. Can I give myself permission to leap back to mom and dad? Can I reconcile with myself that this is the brave thing to do? Can I give myself the opportunity to write my own checklist?

“So I need to quit my job. Can I live with you? Hypothetically, if I quit my job… Could I come here?”