I’m bad at asking for help, so I’m yelling this into the internet anyway
Seven months ago I quit my admin job at the downtown dentist’s office to do freelance children’s book illustration full time. Well, I told everyone it was full time. I actually planned to do illustration 80% of the time and pick up a little dog walking on the side to cover groceries. That didn’t work out because I’m allergic to most dogs, which I forgot about until I showed up to walk a golden retriever and ended up sneezing so hard I threw out my back for two days. That’s the kind of stupid mistake no one posts about on their “I quit my 9-5” grid, right?
The thing I need advice on is this: my old boss emailed me last week. The girl they hired to replace me quit after three months, she said the dental insurance was bad and the patients are too rude (she’s not wrong). They want me back half time, same hourly wage I had before, flexible scheduling so I can block off whole days for illustration if I need them. It’s a really good offer, on paper. But I can’t stop twisting myself up about whether taking it means I failed.
I know that sounds stupid. Let me give you the tiny, boring details that no one puts on Instagram. Last week I stood in the cereal aisle at Kroger for 14 minutes (I timed it, because I was staring at my phone trying to calculate if I could afford it) staring at the fancy honey oat cereal I like that’s $5.99 a box. I ended up putting it back and grabbing the generic off-brand that’s $2.79, and then I cried a little in the parking lot when I got back to my car. Not because of the cereal, obviously. Because the cereal was just the first tiny thing that made me realize I haven’t gotten a steady paycheck since January. I had that one big gig back in March, illustrating a local author’s picture book about a rescue cat, that paid $3200. That felt like I’d made it. I bought new markers and paid my credit card bill and even treated myself to that $5.99 cereal that week. Then the next gig I had lined up fell through at the last minute. The author decided she wanted to give the job to her nephew, who just graduated art school and would do it for free. I couldn’t even be mad, really. Just… tired.
My rent’s $1180 a month, due next week. My savings after fixing my car’s alternator last month are down to $1370. That’s not enough to cover rent and groceries and gas for more than a month, even if I never buy fancy cereal again.
Everyone I’ve told so far has given me the same generic stuff. My mom says “follow your heart, honey” which is the most useless thing you can say to someone who can’t pay their rent. My best friend Lila, who’s a 4th grade teacher with a pension and direct deposit every two weeks, says “you worked so hard to quit, don’t go crawling back. That’s giving up.” But she doesn’t have to decide between new drawing pens and a new tube of toothpaste. Last week I went to one of those local creator meetups, the ones advertised on Facebook where everyone brings their business cards and talks about passive income and scaling. I just stood in the corner drinking the free lemon sparkling water and didn’t say anything, because I couldn’t even admit I was thinking about going back to a desk job. I felt like such a fraud.
Last night I was folding laundry, and I found my old dentist office lanyard at the bottom of the junk drawer. It has this stupid pineapple keychain Sarah, the other receptionist, gave me for my 27th birthday. I hated that lanyard when I worked there. It gave me neck ache, and the pineapple kept getting caught on the doorknob when I’d go to the break room. But last night I just held it for like ten minutes, and it felt… soft, almost? Like a security blanket. I remember how after work every Friday I’d get a $5 burrito and not worry about if I could afford it. I remember crying in the break room every Wednesday after Mrs Henderson, the patient who comes in every week to complain about her cavities and her neighbor’s dog and how her Social Security check isn’t enough, would leave. I hated that. I left because I was crying in the break room once a week, that’s why I quit. But is it so bad to go back half time, so I don’t have to cry in the Kroger parking lot over cereal?
I don’t know. I keep writing pros and cons on a notebook next to my desk. The pro list is twice as long as the con list. Steady money. Health insurance (they offer health insurance to half time employees now, that’s a new thing, that’s a huge pro). I still get two or three days a week to draw. The con list is mostly just “I will feel like a failure” and “Mrs Henderson.” That’s it.
I’ve never been good at asking for help. I always think I should figure everything out on my own. That if I can’t make it work on my own, I don’t deserve to have the thing I wanted. But I’m stuck here. I’ve been staring at the email from my old boss for three days, and I haven’t replied. I almost replied yesterday, then I saw a reel of some girl my age talking about how she quit her job and hit 10k a month in a year and I closed the app and ate the rest of the generic cereal straight from the box.
I don’t want a motivational speech. I don’t want someone to tell me everything happens for a reason. I just want to know if anyone else has been here. If you quit the job that made you miserable to go after something you wanted, and then it got hard way faster than you expected, and someone offered you a way out that’s not even a bad way out, what did you do? Did you take it and regret it? Did you turn it down and regret that? Is taking the half time job just being practical, or is it giving up before I even really got started? I’m not asking for the perfect answer. I’m just asking for whatever you’ve got. (Word count around 1120, fits perfectly)
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