The Rub

Changing a career path seems to be the hallmark of the quarter life crisis. I had all these plans when I was younger, these ideas of who I would be as an adult, and most of that identity was based around my job. Changing a career for the first time is about as easy and pleasant as having a full face transplant - you have to change your perception of who you are. 

I made the choice to be an artist sometime between middle school and high school. It wasn't a sudden flash of inspiration, but a slow realization that I was a creative person and I loved expressing my imagination in the real world. In college I chose film as my primary medium, one I still adore above all others even though I now consider myself a writer first and foremost. Imagining stories and finding fun ways of sharing them has always brought me enormous joy, but never a large paycheck. Anyone might have seen it coming, anyone except me, that is. I was always cocksure and confidant, and since I had always excelled in school and college, always been in the top percentile of my class, I assumed that I would be one of the lucky ones who would "make it," as they say.

What I didn't know was that the art world worked nothing like e school world, and at rewards are not given out for hard work and skill alone. I was never good at networking, never good at bragging myself up, and never good at just inserting myself into other people's projects. I was missing some key components of creative success. I was also missing a trust fund or family in the industry, which I've found is the surest path for any artist to succeed. (I used to carry a huge chip on my shoulder about that one. Thankfully my righteous anger has cooled into a resigned sense of cynicism in the last few years.) After a failed attempt to burst into the film industry in New York, I tried desperately to find some alternative way to break in, but in this economy even the weird finds itself outsourced and outcompeted. 

Which is why, six weeks before my 29th birthday, I'm slinging booze at wealthy politicians for a living. I have one self-published novel under my belt, a stack of screenplays collecting dust, and no more than 50 Twitter followers. Now is probably the time to throw in the towel. I've known this for months, and I've been attempting to put my ducks in a row for this "career change," a term I've come to associate with the same kind of pain as being slowly crushed by a steamroller. 

Trying to be wise I chose a career that would fit my soft skills as well as offer me an opportunity for upward mobility: public relations. I'm skilled in communications, even if my best writing skills do come from describing zombies and space aliens. And ten years of bartending has certainly taught me how to cater to an audience. Maybe, I thought, if I work for a firm that specializes in restaurant clients I can slide right in. That would be perfect.

I gathered a few mentors: customers of mine who are owners or executives at public relations firms. And the message I got was that I don't have the experience... But I might be able to get an internship. For no money.

Which brings us to the rub. I've been delaying asking for an internship like the Dickens. Will I be able to pay my bills if I spend half my week working for free? No, I won't. Will I be able to get a second job? Will working two jobs and an internship break me? Will I be able to make ends meet even with such an arrangement?

It's a risk, but the logical part of my brain tells me that it's worth the reward, that I won't get anything if I don't at least try. But something in my gut keeps screaming NO EFFING WAY. The real problem isn't the risk level, it's the lack of passion. I'd take the risk for something I care about, but I still can't bring myself to really feel for this new "career" that I haven't really experienced and don't know if I'll even like.

I feel that passion for writing. While I was doing my research and updating my resume I put all my creative projects on hold. It was time to grow up, I thought, and that means that the toys go I. The closet. For weeks after I couldn't sleep. Intensely vivid dreams kept me tossing and turning and I'd wake up exhausted. My brain needed an outlet. When I finally allowed myself to write something, just a silly, rambling, free write, my sleep started returning to normal. It frightens me, to be honest, how integral the creative is to my well-being, especially because after so many years of failure I'm convinced that I'm not very good at it. 

I guess the problem is that you can't just change who you are. I can't, at any rate. But who I am just isn't propelling me into who I want to be. At least, not yet.