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MidReal Story
i quit my job yesterday.
Scenario:i quit my job yesterday.
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I don’t even know how I ended up here.
Well, that’s a lie—I do know how, I just can’t believe it.
I quit my job.
The thought of it made me want to throw up my breakfast and lunch and forget about the bottle of wine I had opened the night before.
I was free.
I could do whatever I wanted.
No more waking up to endless emails or phone calls in the middle of the night.
No more boring meetings or company events.
No more annoying coworkers, no more deadlines, no more clients.
I hadn’t hated my job, really—I had been pretty good at it, actually—but I just didn’t love it.
And I was tired of pretending that I did.
I wish I could say that I put a lot of thought into the decision, but I didn’t.
I’d been unhappy for way too long and I finally reached my breaking point.
I had no idea what I was going to do next, but the possibilities were endless.
I started to feel sick again, so I took a deep breath and got out of bed.
“Hey, are you okay?”
Alex looked at me, his face filled with concern as he passed over a carton of ice cream.
I scooped out a spoonful of peanut butter cup and sighed before nodding at him.
“I feel like shit,” I mumbled from where I was sitting on the couch in his apartment.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
he asked cautiously and I shook my head at him.
“No,” I said, my voice louder than before.
He raised his hands in surrender and sat down on the couch next to me, absentmindedly sipping on his beer while watching me.
We’d been friends for as long as we could remember—he’d grown up next door to me in our hometown of San Francisco and we’d gone to school together until college—but he knew that when I said no, I meant yes, and that he should keep pushing.
I sighed again and put down the carton of ice cream in my hands before turning towards him and giving him my best puppy dog face.
“I quit my job yesterday.”
He stared at me, his eyes wide and mouth open in shock.
“Yeah, I don’t know,” I said, my voice small.
He moved closer to me and wrapped his arms around my shoulders, pulling me close.
“I’m sorry, Em.
I know how much you liked it there,” he said gently, rubbing my back.
I shook my head at him.
“I didn’t like it there.
I mean, it was fine, but it wasn’t great.
Most days, it wasn’t even good.
And life is too short for not good.”
He nodded at me and rested his chin on top of my head.
“I’m proud of you for doing something about it,” he said after a few seconds of silence.
I smiled at him and leaned my head against his shoulder, the tension that had built up inside of me finally easing.
“Thanks, Alex,” I said quietly.
