Unemployed, Anxious, and Almost Okay

I feel anxious. And a little excited. Like I’ve just stepped off a moving train and haven’t quite figured out whether the ground beneath me is solid or still shaking. 

It’s been two days since I left my job. Which is to say, two days since I walked away from the monthly ritual of direct deposits and Outlook calendars and the warm illusion of certainty. I traded it for time—something I haven’t had in years. Time to sleep, to wander, to ask questions that don’t have bullet-pointed answers.

I’ve always wanted to believe I’m a free spirit. But it turns out even free spirits can be held hostage by the need to succeed. My therapist once said I seem to treat self-worth like a group project—waiting for others to sign off before I believe in it myself. That felt uncomfortably true.

I left because I was burned out. Not in the dramatic, collapse-on-the-floor way, but the quieter kind—when your enthusiasm gets replaced by dread and your body starts to protest in small, unignorable ways. I think I’ve been running on fumes since my early 40s. Maybe longer.

For most of my 47 years, I’ve been trying to prove something. To be impressive. To be enough. I got better grades, better degrees, better jobs. But I also got tired. There’s a version of health we don’t talk about enough—the kind where you’re not just free of disease, but also free of the constant need to prove your right to exist.

So now I’m here. Unemployed, yes. But also unstructured. And maybe, underneath all that fear, a little hopeful. I have time. Not to optimize, but to notice. To rebuild—not a better version of myself, but maybe a more honest one.

Wellness, I’m realizing, isn’t always about pushing harder. Sometimes it’s about finally unclenching. Like exhaling after holding your breath for years.

And the thing about breath is: you don’t earn it. You just take it.