The Red-Headed Monster

Why do I write? Because I hate my job.

Okay, in this day and age, who doesn’t? Actually, forget this day and age. The story is as old as time. A person shuttles off to work everyday, sitting hopelessly at his or her desk, being lost in daydreams of life as a secret agent or sitting on a beach with a fancy umbrella drink, or wishing that their life meant something. Then that person goes home, kisses the spouse and kids, and experiences an exhausting evening of quality family time. The family has a nice meal, enjoys the roof over their heads, and is thankful for the steady paycheck that paid for all that. Who needs to be driven by passion when there’s security?

That was my existence for years, until something clicked inside back in September 2003. I think it was a breaking point. After two and a half years of swimming in the IT trenches at AOL, dealing with all the politics and doing the dog and pony show just to get simple access to a data warehouse, I opened a word doc and started writing. I just wrote at random, anything that came to my head. I haven’t stopped since then. I can only compare this experience to when Forrest Gump started running and didn’t stop.

I’ve always had the writing bug, but there were always things more important. I had to drive hard to good grades in high school so I could go to college. Then I had to work hard toward that degree so I could go into a field that I bombed out in after nine months. Then I had to go back to graduate school to put my career path in the right direction, but once I had that there were no jobs in Michigan so I moved to Ohio to chase that big job opportunity. I met my now husband, so while climbing up the corporate ladder and learning premium technical skills, I got married, bought a house, had two kids, upgraded houses twice, accumulated pets, and got better jobs. Then the tech bubble burst, so I worked in a job long enough to get laid off because my name sat on the wrong side of an org chart. I found new work, the company went bust, I found new work, the company got bought out and downsized, I found new work, and spent four years watching one person lose their job to cost trimming, knowing my turn would eventually come.

From that breaking point on, I kept writing. It was the only thing keeping me sane.

I continued to balance job insecurity with daycare, gymnastics, little league, soccer, school plays, doctor appointments, vet appointments, and somehow having a hot meal on the table every evening after experiencing another day in the IT world where my soul was stripped to almost nothing. On car trips, lunch breaks, bathroom breaks, traffic jams, and late in the evening at the sacrifice of sleep, I kept writing.

No one but me knows that was the day I cracked. I’ve been well trained to keep up appearances on the outside, keep playing the roles that have been expected in me. But on the inside, something started happening. I found myself. I found my purpose in life for the first time ever. Granted, my name and publishing success don’t go hand in hand. I kept my work secret for two years and then finally got enough courage to post it on the Internet, hiding behind the usual off the wall screen pseudonym. At first, my work was blasted. It didn’t turn me off. It inspired me to do better. I found some communities, read other stuff, rewrote, and slowly the reaction got better. I found a fan base. It was small, but they were loyal and supportive and lifted me to new highs emotionally. My confidence grew too. I ended up supporting other people’s work as well, and we all formed our little online community just by sharing a common love. For two more years, I would spend every moment of my free time writing and eagerly posting my finished work, waiting for the instant reaction. It was a drug, and it kept me from losing it.

Ah, but released my inner passion as a writer has brought on the double edged sword. In the last year, my job satisfaction has hit new lows, while my writing life has hit new soaring highs. I stopped thinking of myself as an amateur writer and started believing I could do this for a living. Ever since that very first word hit the page, I’ve always used writing as a balance; left brain by day (technical), right brain at night (creative). Both sides have wildly fed off the other. In December though, there was no longer work for a seventeen year IT Application specialist like myself. There was no room in the budgets, even though I built a reputation for delivering some exemplary work. The creative side completely took over, while the technical side floundered. Now the technical side doesn’t want to come back.

Even today there’s still little demand for my technical skills in Columbus. Sure, I get solicitations all the time for contract positions in other cities, but here, I’m mud. I don’t care either, because I finally have the time to do what I was meant to do. I started on the fifth rewrite for a novel that I have been struggling with ever since all those random thoughts from that September were pieced together into a completed work. I wrote an article showing my intense love for a TV show I recently discovered and convinced a blog site to post it. That article became very popular worldwide with the show’s fans and was even picked up for syndication. Next thing I know, I have a regular column, and the base keeps growing. These last six months have been the greatest of my life.

Back to that double edged sword thing though. There’s a struggle, personal fulfillment verses a paycheck. The mere thought of doing IT work anymore breaks me apart inside. The money is great though, and it’s hard to scale back a family lifestyle, especially at my age. I’m back to work this week, doing short term busy work (contract), and every day I come into my little cube, sit down, and fight the urge to write rambling thoughts such as these. I don’t care anymore if a local bank is having issues with the data mart that’s preventing them from generating mandated reports. In the end, I’ll save the day with my SQL prowess, my efforts won’t be appreciated, and I’m back to looking for work, ready to find my future ex-employer. My resume is so damn long it rivals the novel I’m writing in terms of length.

I haven’t figured it all out yet, but I’m older, wiser, and crankier when it comes to denying my inner passion. Once the beast inside is unleashed, it’s impossible to put it back into the cage. All I can do is keep writing when I can, because the alternative is no longer acceptable. I’m not giving back my soul.