Props to the Free Spirits
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If Only I Could Be One
I hear we’re in the midst of the “great resignation.” Go, team. Seriously. Well done to all the fantastic millenials giving the middle finger to corporate America and figuring out how to make a living, meager as it might be, creating a full-on brand identity by launching a t-shirt line with a single word on it, or being life coaches from their sprinter vans. I admire you.
I admire you, but I am not you.
I am so not you that I just spent $25k building an enviable rooftop deck on my house, complete with custom-fabricated wrought-iron spiral staircase built onsite, and installed a digital lock system on my wooden gate so that if some of my neighbors want to use the rooftop while I’m out of town, I can grant them access over bluetooth.
I’m not crapping on the great resignation, mind you. I’m just incapable of envisioning how to do it, and I’m not interested in trying it on for size, really.
I can’t imagine striking out on my own with little more than a Cricut and my creativity in order to start a new life. The best I’ve done is to convert my basement spare rooms into a cozy Air BnB so that I can offset my mortgage, which then offsets my expenses while I plot my digitally nomadic wanderings that will help satisfy my travel cravings while I still live my expensive life. I mean, I’m not packing my stuff into a camper van. I’m logging extra stamps on my passport and working from tropical climates a month or so at a time. Big, big difference.
The closest I came to the free-spirited exodus was that the moment my former company issued the edict that we’d be returning to the office on a hybrid model, thus forcing me into a three-day per week commute of more than thirty minutes, I went on the market for a shiny new job that would release me of that commitment. I needed the release anyway, because my direct boss was bordering on psycho and the work/life balance was anything but balanced. Adding a 60-minute commute on the DC beltway was pouring gasoline on simmering embers.
Before long, that shiny new offer came wrapped in a bow and I jumped at the chance to be forever fully remote, with the option to work from anywhere in the big, wide world doing what I love.
