07/21/2026: Thank You For Your Interest

After four long months of uncertainty and too many applications and rejections to count, I finally got some good news. My hopes are high as I start a new chapter and really start providing for us for the first time in over four years. 

Last week marked the first week of gig work for me since 2020. With a half week’s worth of work and money under my belt—and a major car maintenance setback to kick it all off—I’m still allowing myself to feel optimistic about the possibilities before me in the coming days. With infinite part-time and full-time opportunities hanging in the air, I’m honestly relieved that I was finally able to start something that I have control over, with a chance to work for myself and prove that I’m willing to do what it takes to make the most of this endeavor while pursuing my dreams. 

It almost feels like a regular nine-to-five job would have trapped me, and that I dodged a bigger bullet than I currently realize. Maybe that’s just hindsight mixed with the relief of finally receiving a lifeline, but either way I’m happy to be making money with the flexibility to be free. At any old job, all my time, energy, and devotion would have to be spent on the company’s best interests no matter what those were, my morals and desire for work-life balance disregarded in the name of profit margins. I know it’s a steady schedule, and that benefits come with that, but for some reason, this kind of security terrifies and confines me. 

I’m at a point where I want to have agency over everything I possibly can, because I know I can look after myself and my needs better than some corporate boss with empty promises of a great company culture and a generous benefits package. When I take these matters into my own hands, I have the chance to protect my physical and mental health while making what I need to live on my own time, and there’s something truly freeing about getting to do these things myself. I have control over the barriers to my boundaries, and I can change the goal line for my own success and wellbeing for a change.

I heard a quote recently (which may be a paraphrased version of a famous one, so shoutout to the original source) that said: “True freedom is deciding what to be responsible for.” And I think for the first time in my life, I’m in a place where I can receive these words of wisdom and truly understand them. It took years of wanting and overreaching for things no one said outright I had to have; I just assumed I had to get that college degree, had to buy that second car, had to get that two-bed-two-bath apartment, et cetera, et cetera. 

But as I sit here now, not using that degree and writing my heart out, with one car that has over 100,000 miles on it, in a bedroom in my grandparents’ house back in my small hometown, surrounded by loved ones and nothing but my dreams ahead of me, I can finally see what I truly want, and I realize that all those other things were just the desires expected of me because that’s the way of the unquestioning world.

And I have one thing to say to those corporate drones and those salesmen of material happiness:

Thank you for your interest . . . 

 . . . but I’m responsible for me now.