My New Anchor

My previous job was an anchor in every sense of the word: it provided security, stability, a place to be on weekdays, and a purpose outside of myself. I enjoyed most aspects of my job. In many ways it was a dream job, combining two things I’m passionate about: art and technology. I loved being a small part of the process by which creatives bring their visions to reality.

That job also weighed me down; I wasn’t able to do many of the things I loved or hang out with family and friends as often because I was too busy, too exhausted, or I had too much on my mind (or all of the above!). Information Technology is pretty much always on-call by default, especially when you’re in charge and even more so for me because I live so close to campus. I could get there and respond to outages and issues faster than anyone else. Having that responsibility, that constant awareness in mind at all times was a huge drain. Not that things went awry all that often, we had built a pretty robust infrastructure. But things happen; I remember a day several years ago when our single sign-on provider had a two-week outage, starting on the first day of the Fall semester. Everyone was coming back to campus and no one could log into anything. We had to scramble to do damage control: communicate clearly what was going on and what we were doing about it, work out other ways for people to log into each platform, work with the vendor to figure out what was going on. And once things were working again, we worked to ensure that we had a more robust, belt-and-suspenders approach to logins for our most important platforms. Although beyond our control, we had to respond to the situation; everyone needed to access their email, documents, and work platforms. I don’t miss these kinds of situations.

I’ve been thinking about these things a lot since leaving and adjusting to my new consulting/freelance life as Two Bit Consulting. Giving up the old anchor has been both frightening and exhilarating.

When I lost my old anchors, I felt like I was afloat at sea with no way to guide myself or get back to shore. Before deciding to focus on my freelance practice, I wasn’t sure where I was going to land. I wanted to try to enjoy some time off, but the uncertainty didn’t allow for much time to relax. Putting myself out there as an independent consultant took a certain amount of confidence in the face of uncertainty; trust that things would work out. My fear isn’t specific; it’s more general. Most days, I’m working as hard as I ever did at my old job, but now I AM the institution. So far it’s gone well, but I wonder what’s next after my current projects end? And then after that? And after that. My fear is more about the constant hustle right now.

On the other hand, I have the opportunity now to figure out my new anchors and I’m trying to be more mindful as I choose them. My wife is my constant anchor, in the best sense of the word, keeping me centered, balanced, and supported when I need it. My dogs are also my good anchors; they ground me and make sure I take breaks from long working sessions. I’ve recently joined the Kansas City Freelance Exchange board as their Web Director, a meaningful position in which I can share my talents and expertise to benefit the organization and other freelancers. I now have the ability to choose the clients with whom I want to work; although I can’t afford to be too picky since I’m just getting started. I need all the work I can get right now.

The new anchors allow me to be more flexible: I can work from anywhere, though I love my home office, I can run to the grocery store at 9:00 in the morning on a Monday to avoid the weekend crowds, I can take a random Tuesday off to go to the zoo, I can have a three-hour lunch with a friend that I haven’t seen in a while.

Letting go of the anchors that were weighing me down and trusting that the new ones will hold is both frightening and exhilarating.

Building Something Out of Nothing

Three months ago today I walked away from a job I’d held for twenty years. I knew it was coming but nothing really prepares you for the moment when you hand over your keys and drive away.

I’ve been thinking about identity a lot in the last three months. What nobody tells you about losing a job you loved is how much of yourself goes with it. Not just the work, the identity. The morning routine. The sense of being needed. I spent the first few weeks genuinely wondering who I was without a title attached to my name and the work. I wrote in my journal: “I feel purposeless without a job, undefined.” I meant it. I had one particularly bad day in early February where I just gave in to all of it — the anger, the sadness, the feeling of worthlessness. I walked around the house all day being miserable on purpose. It sounds counterintuitive but it worked. I woke up the next morning in the best mood I’d had in years.

What I’ve learned in the last three months is that the identity I lost wasn’t really mine. It was given to me, shaped by an institution, tied to an organization, a budget, and an org chart I didn’t choose. After the shock of the change started to wear off I began building a new identity for myself. The one I’m building now is chosen. Every piece of it.

I’ve been working to launch a consulting business: building the website, creating branding, getting organized. I launched Two Bit Consulting a couple of weeks ago, and this morning I received the Articles of Organization from the state of Missouri. It just became real in a new way. My client list is growing quickly. I’ve been writing more, building things, exploring technology in ways I haven’t had time or energy for in years. I called a former colleague this week and told them that life on the other side is pretty dang nice. I meant that too.

I’m not going to pretend the last three months have been easy. Some days were genuinely hard. But I can say without hesitation that I’m happier, less stressed, and more myself than I’ve been in a very long time.
The explorer, the builder, the connector - it turns out they were still here the whole time. They just needed a little room and energy.