one day I woke up and realized I didn't want everything I had worked so hard for

For as long as I can remember I’ve wanted to be a career woman. A business owner. A boss babe, (even though I actually hate that title) if you will.

When we were kids, I would make my sister play restaurant with me. I was the proud owner of an intimate establishment with cozy vibes and a focus on dining, I called it The Candlelight and she was my very delighted customer.

Then at thirteen I told myself I had to stop playing and get serious (????). My school had a mandatory PRCI (for the life of me I can’t remember what that stands for… personal resources career information? That just doesn’t sound right but it was something along those lines) class where we had to research our desired careers (tell me why they made me do this at thirteen years old) and when I say research, I mean research. Average salary, schooling, career outlook, we had to create a freaking pamphlet basically selling the career to someone and we had to do the same thing for our backup plan.

Again, please tell me why the fuck they had me doing this at thirteen.

Anyways — as with all the MySpace girlies — my first choice was to become a photographer (with becoming a hairstylist as my second choice). I didn’t care about the outlook of it or what it would take to get there, it’s what I wanted to do. From that point on I took pictures of anything and everything. I was the annoying friend flashing a camera (and eventually a cell phone) in your face non-stop. Aside from people, I took pictures of flowers, decorations, animals, you name it, if I thought it was photo-worthy I snapped that damn pic.

Then at 15 my entire world came crashing down around me when I broke my back. I was diagnosed (too late) with an injury that would not heal itself due to scar tissue build-up and was presented with two options: back surgery or rehabilitation and physical therapy to see if I could lead a normal, pain-free life. We (my mom) opted out of surgery. A decision I’m incredibly grateful for now.

I spent the summer before my junior year in a back brace with weekly physical therapist appointments to build a strong core and hopefully enough support for the broken bone. I couldn’t run, I couldn’t go to amusement or water parks, I couldn’t jump, I couldn’t take the annual four wheeler trip with my family, I couldn’t do anything that made my teenage summer heart happy.

I recovered but I never healed.

High school wasn’t the best experience for me for a multitude of reasons that we don’t need to get into (is high school a good experience for anyone?) and that was a driving force behind my decision to chose PSEO with a local college that offered the a degree in what I wanted to be. Starting in my junior year of high school I attended college on campus as a full-time student, taking an average of 18 credits each semester so I could simultaneously graduate high school and achieve an AAS degree. At seventeen years old, I walked across two graduation stages and was well on my way to starting my career (with zero knowledge of business).

Shortly following my high school graduation, I moved out of the only home I’d ever known and accepted a position two hours away as the main photographer for a local photo studio — fully knowing it wasn’t at all what I dreamed of but I needed something to do while I was building my real business.

The job didn’t last long. Neither did the next one (or the next and the cycle continued). I hated the idea of having a boss. I hated someone else creating my schedule. I hated having to ask for permission to literally live my life. I hated committing a majority of my life to a place I didn’t even like.

I was at my fourth job when I got engaged. I knew that my current job was not gonna cut it to pay bills and pay for a wedding (I also knew how badly I wanted out of it, I cried weekly about having to go back). A photographer I had admired started posting on social media about some shampoo she was using. I didn’t pay much attention until a few months later her hair looked amazing and I had started to notice that mine did not (you notice a lot about how you look when you’re planning a wedding). Still, I didn’t buy it.

Then another photographer I admired was sharing the same damn shampoo. And another, and another, when suddenly my entire Instagram feed was flooded with this fucking shampoo. One after another sharing how much their hair (and lives?) had changed. I’m sorry how is a bottle of shampoo gonna change your life? But posts kept rolling in. Shiny hair, big checks, and white Cadillacs. When I was finally stopped in my tracks reading about passive residual income. Making money in your sleep.

I needed that. I needed that for my wedding. I needed that to have my dream wedding photographer. I needed that to be a successful photographer myself. My back would never be strong enough to work back to back weddings and weddings are what would pay the bills if photography was all I did.

I bought the shampoo.

It was scary and weird and super embarrassing. I was an avid network marketing hater and I made sure everyone and anyone knew it. Then there I was, eating my own words, slinging some haircare products I was obsessed with (and I’m still obsessed).

This set me on an entirely new path I never envisioned for myself. Finally, finally I was able to leave the jobs I hated. I was able to live life on my terms, set my own hours, and still do what I loved the most: shoot. I had everything I wanted in a career.

It was never enough though.

It didn’t matter that I’d built a solid customer base or that I had a team I loved. I was never where I wanted to be. Something was always missing. There was always another rank or dollar amount or award or something that I didn’t have. I continued to push through. It’s a season, I would tell myself. You’re just in the trenches, it’ll get better. This is everything you’ve ever wanted I would say. In the midst of all of this my business was suffering. I missed goals I should have easily hit. Numbers were down and paychecks were way down until I woke up one day and realized I didn’t want it. Any of it (or maybe it was my disorganized attachment cutting it off before it could cut me off — quitting before I actually failed).

Call me lazy, call me a failure, say I’m a fraud, quitter, unreliable, disappointing, flakey, call me whatever you want. I can promise you that anything you come up with won’t be half as bad as the things I’ve said to myself over and over.

What the hell am I supposed to do now?

I was in my late 20s without a plan. Approaching 30 without a plan. I hated the idea of going to an office, I couldn’t just do photography, and I had no dreams or ambitions that would generate an income. This was an unchartered identity crisis I never expected. I always knew what I wanted. Yet there I was with nothing.

Travel had always been a love of mine so when I saw an ad to become a flight attendant out of MSP, I thought “why not?” I put in an application and was invited for an interview the very next day where I was offered the position via email before I even got home. It felt like a whirlwind. 48 hours prior I hadn’t even thought about becoming a flight attendant and here I was sitting on an offer. I accepted it and quickly learned that it alone would not (by a long shot) pay the bills, I still needed (and was desperately clinging to with some sense of hope that I would fall in love with it again) my other business.

The more trips I went on, the more I let my business slip away from me. I was on yet another hamster wheel of life that I so desperately needed to get off but couldn’t see a way out. The thought of a real job made me want to die. I was a business owner. I ran a successful business working for myself for four years. Now I have to go back to the very thing I was escaping in the first place.

And that’s exactly what I did because while I want to sit in my feelings and try to figure shit out life doesn’t let you do that. Bills still come in every month and if you’re not working, they tend add up pretty quickly. Now I walk into an office 5 days a week and spend 42.5 hours of my life on someone else’s terms. If my 20 year old self saw me now she’d be utterly horrified and disappointed about what her life ended up being (hell, if my 25 year old self saw me just three years later she’d think the same).

I’m quite literally living my own worst nightmare, but what else do you do when you have no idea what you want to do anymore? Life waits for no one.