When I was a mere sprout of an adult, I graduated college and had no idea what I was going to do. I didn’t have an internship lined up and had nowhere to go, so I just went home and started looking for jobs. In those pre-internet days, finding a job in your field was not as simple as checking your notifications from LinkedIn. In fact, I barely even remember what it was like. Did I search in the classifieds? Send cold call letters of interest? Dang, we didn’t even have EMAIL! Who even remembers how we used to make connections back then. 

What I do remember is that terrible feeling of uncertainty with the unknown, which for me always pushes me to take risks just to feel like I’m doing something. At that age, I craved forward motion. Nothing was worse to me than standing still. I landed a small, (very) low-paying career job in my home state, but it didn’t feel right. It wasn’t scratching my itch to make something of myself. I stayed for a while, then just packed up my car, grabbed my orange tabby cat, and moved to Chicago, where a lot of my friends from college had landed. I didn’t have a job, but I knew there would be opportunities there. 

A few years later, I was visiting my grandparents back in Mississippi. They were from the Greatest Generation and had met during World War II. He navigated bombers, and she worked in a shipyard in Florida that built warships. She told me as we made almond shortbread together that she really admired my courage to just up and move because I wasn’t happy with my circumstances. She said this was not something most people do because they fear the unknown. (Back in her day, I believe they called it having “pluck.”) It was one of those sweet bonding moments when I felt she saw herself in me. I remember telling her that I have always been excited about change. What I fear is stagnation.

I made a few more moves after that. After working in journalism–mostly newspapers–I became concerned that this career was not compatible with my life goals as I got older. I wanted to be financially stable and hoped to have a family someday. I loved the creativity of the job and the thrill of winning press association awards. I was good at it. However, I saw how hard it was for anyone with kids (especially women) to put in the late hours needed to get a paper out the door. I also saw how strapped the industry was and how it was nearly impossible to take a vacation because there was no one to fill in if you were gone. Even though journalism was exciting and fun, I really couldn’t see a path forward to my personal and financial goals.

So I jumped. I packed up the cat again (such a good boy!) and headed to grad school. Two years later, I had my masters in curriculum and instruction. 

I found that being a teacher filled in a lot of holes for me. It’s hard to stagnate when everything starts anew in September. There is never a lack of challenge in the classroom. I also found that I liked being around teenagers and their energy. I also loved the personal connection I was able to build with my students and the deep feeling of satisfaction I got when I saw them improve and grow. I still used my journalism skills: I analyzed and edited every single day. I taught these skills to kids and started up student newspapers and tv shows. Now, it was them winning the awards, which felt just as great as when I won them. Yes, holding an issue of a magazine I helped create when it’s fresh off the press gives a little thrill, but it pales in comparison to watching a human being I’ve personally helped mold walk across a graduation stage. 

In my (so far) 22 years of teaching, I found something new to be pleased with aside from the thrill of forward motion. I discovered the deep satisfaction of having roots and bonds. I bought a house and made a pact with myself not to change jobs or move for as many years as I could stand it. And guess what: staying put did more to help me reach my goals than chasing them did. I got married. I had a daughter. I settled in for a while. However, change sometimes comes for you whether you want it to or not.

Enter the economic crash of 2010 and the new push to standardize everything in education. Enter slashed budgets, increased class sizes, and micromanagement. Exit everything I loved about my job. Exit me from public schools. 

Eleven years had passed before I jumped without a net again. I spent six months working as a long-term substitute while I searched for a job in a smaller, private school. I wanted a place where I could have autonomy again, where I could connect with my students the way I used to, instead of spending hours every week writing ridiculously detailed lesson plans. The next year I started teaching at my current, cozy little school, where there is really no end to how much impact I can have with these kids. I teach some of them four years in a row! I’ve been here 11 years now, and this place feels as comfy to me as my favorite slippers. The only limit to what I can do in the classroom here is my imagination.

Anyone who has lived through the last two years on Planet Earth knows which major career upheaval came next. My school made it through the pandemic successfully; yet, I feel the creeping fingers of change coming for me again. It’s a constant stirring. This time, I’m not as confident to make that leap; however, the ground is shifting under my feet, so I need to act. Viruses. Political upheaval. Climate change. Inflation. The possibility of war. Amidst all these, I will need to send a kid off to college and plan for retirement. It’s time to kick myself out of my own cozy career nest and make my way up the financial ladder. 

So here I am again, looking for a new career direction. I miss writing, and I now have 22 years of editing essays and herding cats under my belt. I think I have a boatload of skills to offer any company who will let me get a foot in the door. I’m going big here, searching for my new home in a successful corporation that will have what I need, like a competitive salary and benefits (crazy talk, I know!). There’s a huge shift in the world of work right now. Workers are more empowered and salaries are up. The more people change jobs, the more openings there are, which makes it the perfect time to make that leap. 

I was once in a salary negotiation with a boss at a time when the company was undergoing some turbulence and turnover. He wanted to keep me on staff to stanch the bleeding. I remember saying to him that change is scary to some but looks to me like an opportunity for growth in a company, to look within and stave off stagnation. I remember the look on his face of tremendous relief that I saw things the way he did. I got the raise. 

Now, I’m the one who needs to stave off stagnation, and I’m pretty excited about it, honestly. This time, however, I’m not going to jump without a net. I hope my grandmother would still be proud.