House of Cards

Those who know me well know that I fail major life choices. 

No matter how much I joke about it, I know I’ll never get married again because the thought of major life choices scare me. In my last relationship, I’d crack wise & then say “YOU KNOW I AM COMPLETELY FINE WITH RIGHT NOW, RIGHT?!” Not so much for him, but for ME. I wasn’t even sure how to trust a man, especially THAT man, so anything more than that level of intimacy scared me. Actually, ALL intimacy scared me. Anytime we’d add something, I’d kind of want to breathe in a bag. I wanted to trust him, but trusting people is really hard for me. There’s a lot of damage from trusting people who hurt me, so letting people in freaks me out. Letting in the person who caused the most damage terrified me. I don’t really let friends close to me (except maybe two), family, etc. It actually scares me, because then they can hurt me, leave me & I’d rather not give people the opportunity. 

But I digress. 

This fear of major life choices applies to everything. I walked out of a job two days in because they needed me to know my schedule for the next six months. I can barely plan the next six days. I had another job lined up, so I took it. Major life choices of any kind make me panic, because I get questioning myself & ask myself “what if?” & worry I’m gonna mess it all up. 

In order to build my career, I sent out a bunch of resumes. I applied at a lot of magazines, newspapers & everything in between. I applied at every media outlet in this country, and even some in the US. For about a month, I didn’t get any calls, despite my annoying the living crap out of every editor because I was in some kind of weird, determined, “I’m going to do this because I’m a warrior,” mode. I didn’t actually think it through. Then this happened;

I wasn’t offered one; I was offered TWO. Also, I have a lead on a full time position at a magazine that would be my dream job. I want it so badly that I’ve been calling the editor non-stop, reminding him that I’m still interested while kicking off my tenure at the other two by starting my first freelance article under that banner this week. 

Did I mention that it’s the other side of the country? Oh yeah. IT’S ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE COUNTRY. 

I was super motivated until I realized that I may ACTUALLY HAVE TO MOVE ACROSS THE COUNTRY. On the plus side, at least it’s not the arctic! (I hate snow. And winter. I don’t feel the arctic is right for me) 

So, now I’m left with choices. Obviously I can transfer my regular people job to the new city while I freelance & I would only for sure move if I acquired the full time position I am assertively campaigning for, but I’ve accomplished more in 8 weeks in a province I don’t live in than I did in my current city in 10 months. I’m freelancing for magazines, one with a pretty great media company that has a lot of magazines and newspapers under the umbrella, which means a lot of opportunities for me professionally. Even freelancing through this organization is a dream come true for me. 

But, then I think about the girls, their relationship with their dad will be very different. I saw how much that hurt someone; I don’t know if I could do that (even if he isn’t going to win father of the year anytime soon). I worry about the city I would be moving to. It’s much larger than where I live now. Would I be putting myself in a situation that would stunt my personal growth? Or would it allow me to move forward in a positive way? Could I afford to live there? I still can’t legally drive on my own, who will help me truck my stuff across the country? I moved the kids once & they hated it. They like the house but hate their school & miss their music lessons & ask to move home regularly. I thought this move would be awesome, but once I got here, I found media opportunities were scarce & making friends when you work a zillion hours isn’t so easy. When my writing with CineKlik started getting praise & buzz, it made me realize how much I missed writing & that I needed to move forward with my career. But I’m also afraid to end up in a situation where I’m not financially sound or worse, I wasn’t as good as I thought I was & I moved my daughters to chase a dream that’s never really going to come true & I’m meant for Johnny punch clock retail jobs, not journalism. 

If you thought I was neurotic when I moved two hours from home, imagine me NOW. The cons are terrifying & the pro is that I’ll finally have almost everything I ever wanted. You’d think that would make it easy, but here we are. 

I’m going to take some time out this week & drink ridiculous amounts of caffeine with a friend (who’s also in the biz) & hammer it all out. Then I’ll spend the weekend with friends who are used to my special brand of blood pressure raising angst. And I’ll text Erica & the Psych Major & cry. And somewhere in the middle I’ll figure it out, right? 

Right? Seriously, I suck at this. Help.