Why? Why not?

I've been seeing a lot of interesting faces lately. The thing about quitting your job is that you have to tell people about it. I guess you could just stop showing up, but that's not really my style. Most people say something like "Oh really? Did you find another job?". The answer to that question is that no, I don't have another "job". Stuff to do? Yes. A paying gig? Nope. That's when I get the confused face.

I was making confused faces for a while too. In the shower. In my head. On the subway too, it seems, judging by the weird looks I would get from strangers.

You see, my job, which I am still at for a few more weeks, is very cool. I have been there for over 5 years and have made friends there - very good friends. I even had an actual office at one point, and I gave it to one of those friends. Yes, I have friends that mean *that* much to me. I got to work on cool and interesting projects and people would let me put my two cents in too. In my opinion, all those things make for a very good job.

When I was in high school trying to pick a field of study, one of the nuns had said that we would just know which direction to take, that we'd hear a voice and it would lead us down the right path. Maybe it was too much loud grunge rock making me deaf in the late 90's, but I heard no such voice. Besides, I would have probably mistaken it for the spirit of Kurt Cobain.

So I did the next best thing - I picked something I liked. Fashion marketing led to travel marketing, and I became "one of those idea people". A few years ago though, the voice finally came and I wasn't impressed with what it had to say. "This isn't the place for you." it said. "Oh yeah?" I'd reply, "so where should I go then?" The voice never answered with anything other than "Just leave". Uh, no. You don't leave a perfectly good job "just because". Or do you?

Still, the voice got louder, and louder and the feeling that it was in fact right just got stronger and stronger. There had been a sense of urgency to the voice lately: it's as if I had somewhere important I had to be, couldn't remember where it was, but knew it was coming up really soon.

By now, you must understand that I know the voice is right. It doesn't tell me where to go, but it gives me directions on how to get there. And I'm determined to show up.

Photo: Me, going bananas at work.