I made this sub because I ate half a jar of dill pickles crying on my studio floor last month
Let me get this out first: I don’t have all the answers. I’m 27, I still work weekend shifts at the coffee shop on 5th to pay rent, I only take one botany class a semester at the local community college, and half the time I leave lecture more confused about what I want to do than when I walked in. That pickle night wasn’t even my first cry over being lost, it was just the one that pushed me to make this place. I was sitting on my floor because my couch broke back in February and I haven’t had the extra cash to replace it, the only light on was the flickering string light above my window, and I’d just gotten off the phone with my mom who asked for the third time in a week when I’d finish my master’s and get a “real job” in public policy like I was supposed to. I’d already quit the master’s program four months before that, but I still hadn’t figured out how to say it out loud without sounding like a total screwup. So I ate the pickles I’d bought on sale for $1.99, cried about how all my friends have 401(k)s and I can’t even pick what to do next Tuesday, and then I thought, why isn’t there a place for people like me who don’t have it together?
I tried posting about being lost on a couple of the bigger career and education subs a while back. I said I was thinking of ditching policy to study horticulture, that I didn’t even care if I never made six figures, I just hated reading 50 page policy briefs that didn’t matter to anyone I knew, and that I got more joy out of growing zucchini in my little 10×10 community garden plot than I ever got out of any internship. And the top comment was “you just wasted $60k on a degree what is wrong with you” and the next one was “stop being lazy just pick something and stick it out”. Yeah, real helpful. All the other places are full of either people shaming you for changing your mind, or those weird brag posts that are like “I quit my $200k job to start a goat farm and now I’m happier than ever!” like that’s the end goal for everyone. Or the generic “follow your passion!” stuff that makes me want to throw my phone across the room. I don’t have a grand passion. I just have things that hurt less than other things, right now. That’s enough, isn’t it?
Last week I had that awkward extended family birthday dinner for my grandma, and my aunt cornered me by the chip and dip platter and asked when I’d settle down into a real career. I froze, like I always do when people ask that question, and all I could come up with was “I’m growing tomatoes this year” and everyone laughed like it was this cute quirky little phase I’m going through. I didn’t tell them that I sold 18 jars of my own tomato jam at the neighborhood farmers market last month, that I made more profit from that than I did in a whole month of interning at the downtown policy think tank. I also didn’t tell them that I still panic about it, too. Some Sunday nights I scroll through LinkedIn and see my old classmates getting promotions and putting offers in on houses and I lay awake thinking I’ve ruined everything, that I’m just wasting time. Last week I did that, and then my chonky orange cat jumped up on the bed and knocked over my full glass of water all over my seed notebook, and I had to get up and mop it up, and by the time I was done I was too tired to panic anymore. That’s just how it goes, I think.
I made this sub for the people who don’t fit anywhere else. The 19-year-old who’s undecided between three majors and everyone keeps telling you you have to declare next week or you’re screwed. The 35-year-old who’s been working as a nurse for ten years and now you want to go back to school to study graphic design and all your family says you’re crazy. The person who quit their PhD because it was making you miserable and everyone calls you a quitter. The person who doesn’t have any clue what you want to do, you just know you don’t want what you’re doing right now. No one here’s gonna yell at you for wasting money or being too old or being lazy. I’ve been the person who wasted 60k, I’ve been the person who’s “too old to start over” (or so people say), I’ve been the lazy one who doesn’t want to grind 60 hours a week for a fancy business card no one remembers.
I still don’t know if this horticulture thing is gonna work out long term. Maybe in two years I’ll get bored and want to do something else, like learn to fix vintage motorcycles or write bad children’s books about cats. Is that so bad? People change. What I thought I wanted when I was 22 doesn’t have to be what I want when I’m 30, or 40, or 70. I think the worst lie anyone ever told us is that we have to pick one path when we’re 18 or 22 and stick to it forever. My neighbor is 68 and she just started learning how to code last year because she wants to make a website for her local bird watching group. No one’s too late, and no path is a waste, even if you leave it. That old policy degree taught me how to write a clear, concise memo, that’s useful when I write the little plant descriptions for my jam labels. It wasn’t a waste, even if I don’t work in policy anymore.
So yeah, welcome. You don’t have to have a pretty story to post here. You can just say you’re lost and scared and don’t know what to do next. That’s more than enough. I’ll probably respond to your post with something stupid like “that sucks, I once cried over pickles too” or tell you about the time I killed all my first tomato crop by overwatering them and tried again the next spring. No fancy step-by-step plans, no big inspirational speeches, just people who get what it’s like to stand at a crossroads and have no clue which way to go. That’s all I wanted, when I was sitting on that floor eating pickles. Someone to just get it, not fix it. (Word count: 1172)
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