They say don’t quit your day job (get fired instead)

Oh, hi friends!

Well, that was a little unexpected pause. Let me tell you why I disappeared for the last two days. 

I got laid off and then…they took it back?

On Wednesday, there was an announcement that Money, the website where I work, was sold unexpectedly to a new owner. Based in Puerto Rico. Everyone was told that if they didn’t want to move to Puerto Rico, they'd be employed through January and then it was bye-bye. So all the articles I needed to edit and the newsletter I needed to write and the emails I needed to answer were going to have to wait because: Meetings! News! Chaos!

And my immediate thought: What now? 

Where should I go? What should I do? I CAN DO ANYTHING?! I’ve been a freelance writer and editor since 2012 — I only work part-time at Money — and I love a new gig that can challenge and teach me something, too. New horizons opened up. Very nice people even started sending me leads and suggestions. On to the next, I thought, all in the span of 24 hours.

Then, the next day, the new parent company told the staff that, actually, they would open an office in New York. That everyone’s jobs were safe after all. LOL. All the articles I needed to edit and the newsletter I needed to write and the emails I needed to answer were going to have to wait, again. Meetings! News! Chaos!

And then I still thought: What now?

Because something happens when you’re forced to ask — what’s the new horizon?

You remember you have an imagination. You cycle through options. Your mind starts to expand.

And all those new questions and answers can take up a lot of real estate in your head. Maybe all the real estate, even the space you thought was completely off-limits, the one you reserve for your creative work that’s plastered with NO PARKING EVER signs. And it is exhausting.

And so that’s how I was thrown off-kilter. And I was reminded that your practice — your work — can be a very fragile thing. I have written over 650 of these newsletters. I can create them in Mailchimp with my eyes closed. (Some might even say a chimp could do it…) They are very necessary to my weekday life.

But when your surroundings shift, when your priorities shift, and your future shifts, your practice and your work will inevitably shift, too. It doesn’t matter how many newsletters you’ve sent or words you’ve written or how many years you’ve been working toward a goal. Our practices and our routines are fragile. And in the face of change, we are their only guardians.

And so while I go and continue to ponder “What now?” I’m going to keep that in my mind. 

Your biggest responsibility is to be the guardian of your own work.

“His classmates were mystified by the hulking ex-marine. Gabriel Ebert, who later won a Tony Award for his role in “Matilda the Musical,” recalled their 9 a.m. movement classes: “I probably got there at eight-forty-five to stretch, and Adam was already in a full sweat, like he’d been there for at least an hour working out. He brought a discipline to his physical prowess that most of us didn’t learn until well into our second year.” Driver and Ebert got an apartment in Queens, and Driver would run five miles to school every day. He did pushups by the hundreds in the hallways and ate six eggs for breakfast (minus four of the yolks) and an entire chicken, from Balducci’s, for lunch.”

Adam Driver is a beast. I loved the details in this New Yorker profile about his time in the Marines and his early days in New York.

Deep into 1950s land while writing my Marvelous Mrs. Maisel musical, and loving this song “Who’s Sorry Now?” sung by Connie Francis. (h/t my composer Ron Passaro!)

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Thanks, as always, for reading.

Love, Kara