What Happens When Your Job Is Your Creative Muse, and It Goes Away
When I quit my 9–5, I had to relearn how to find inspiration from life itself
I have always felt summer to be particularly freeing — a holdover from childhood and blissfully long and unprogrammed summers punctuating the busy school year. Summers in New York, where I grew up, brought their own energy — erratic, electrifying, and unpredictable — where anything goes, for better or worse. The air is thick and humid but also laden with possibility.
So perhaps it is appropriate that only now, with summer fully underway, do I feel ready to emerge from my post-pandemic cocoon into my post-pandemic life. (I use the term “post-” loosely since the pandemic is in fact far from over, yet it’s safe to say we are entering a new phase.) It’s been years since I’ve lived in New York, but still I feel the same summer buzz as before.
It took a long time to get here. I quit my job back in October, and with it, cut ties with corporate office culture at large. Since leaving my 9–5, I’ve found myself moving through a humbling cycle — trying to be creative, failing, admitting defeat, doing less, and trying again. I struggled to balance childcare and creative pursuits, but also to figure out just what I wanted to write about. For years, I drew inspiration…
