Jobs are stupid

anxiety attacks and loving my novel again

I’m typically not anxious, so I have a pretty clear memory of my first and only (so far) anxiety attack. I was 25 years old. I had been out of college for almost a year. I had spent the summer working 70 hours a week at my first country club waitress job, partying with my coworkers, and going home as little as possible. The winter, when we were laid off for the season, was a dark and slow time when I tried to remember what it was like to be a writer like I was as an English major. I wrote in my journal mostly about how aimless I felt, of how I didn’t want to be a waitress anymore. The members I waited on constantly asked me what I planned to do when the season was over when they assumed I would find a “real job” and move on from this place. They knew I had just graduated and figured I had plans that transcended handing them martinis from a cocktail tray.

But I didn’t. 

The anxiety attack came later. 

In the Spring, my cousin, who worked at Harvard Pilgrim Healthcare, put in a good word for me, and I got an interview. It was a “real” job with benefits and a title that sounded better than what it actually was—solving people’s health insurance issues over the phone. There was a training period that went on for something like eight weeks. Monday through Friday, I commuted an hour to Braintree. From 9-5, we sat in a classroom and learned how health insurance worked, medical terminology, common claims questions, and disputes. I kept telling myself it would be worth it for the money and all the ways this would signify I was a functioning adult in this post-graduation society. 

The attack came during the last week of class. I had made it through all those hours. We were training upstairs where our future desks with our headsets would be. We had to practice taking phone calls. Everything we had learned was put to the test. It wasn’t even my turn to practice. But on the way to the bathroom, I suddenly couldn’t catch my breath. My hands were shaking. I kept trying to inhale deeply, and I couldn’t. I was lightheaded and sure my face had gone sheet white.  

“I have to go,” I told my supervisor. “I’m not feeling well.” 

You weren’t allowed to miss any of the training days, but I couldn’t be in that building anymore. That was all I could think about—getting outside. 

I felt a little better when I pulled out of the parking lot. I called my mom.

“I think I just had an anxiety attack or something,” I said, finally catching my breath and relying to her my symptoms.

My body started to relax. I knew it was telling me what my brain already knew. 

The following day, I called Harvard Pilgrim and said I wouldn't be coming back. 

I have tried to work in other office settings a few more times after that, but the longest I lasted was two years, and that was only because it was during COVID, and we got to work from home. I literally can’t do it. And for a time, I felt bad about that. What is wrong with me? Why can’t I suck it up and take the money and the bennys and punch out at 5:00 every day? I thought it would help me write—all the structured time where I wasn’t being creative, so I could save up all those juices and give my writing project all I had. 

Instead, I just felt impossibly drained.

Right now, I’m in a pretty sweet situation running Write or Die. And the funny thing is, I’m not making much money. I’m still waiting tables. I still don’t have a “real job,” but I have grown to completely reject the idea that some jobs are real and others are lesser because fuck that. Whatever works for you and pays you—that’s a job. At the country club, I wait on people who have done the “right thing” all their lives because look at all this money they have, and shocker, they aren’t always the happy ones. They would furrow their brows if they knew what I was doing—working on being a published writer while trying to build a business in the literary community. They wouldn’t get it. They would think I was crazy for having a job in the health insurance industry (so stable!!) and then throwing it away. 

But I’m not living my life for them, so I’m going to keep writing, whether anyone “gets it” or not.

I just finished reading the third draft of my novel last week, and guess what? It’s in better shape than I thought. 

I still love it. In fact, I think I love it more. Reading it together like that, a task I dreaded, was eye-opening. Yes, the beginning is too long and starting in the wrong place. Yes, I left out a huge chunk in Act Three and scrambled together the ending.

But the middle? Oh, baby, the middle is looking GOOD. 

As I was reading, I felt a flutter in my gut. A sort of tingle in my fingers. A whole body surge of sparkles. Holy shit, I thought.  You did that. And it's working. 

Nothing beats a day when you can look at the work you have spent three years on and feel you finally understand it. I had to get out of my house. I went for a walk (it was a beautiful day!). I had to do something with all that energy. 

If you have read past posts about my novel, you know I have not been very confident in parts of my story. And I’m sure I will encounter more of those kind of days as I work on draft 4. But I’m holding on to this feeling for now. My body is usually right about most things, so I’m going to focus on what she is telling me rather than my grumpy brain, who talks just like those country club folks who asked me when my real job was coming.

I’ve known what my real job was supposed to be for a long time. “Real” has nothing to do with how I make money. “Real” is much deeper than that.

Right now, my real job is this novel.

a happy text message to my writing partner, Tamar