I slept like absolute dog shit last night, which is no surprise considering that I had just gotten back from the “last hurrah” of vacations planned during my sabbatical, and am now getting hit with the hard, cold dose of reality that I am still unemployed after quitting my job nearly 5 months ago.

It’s not for lack of trying. After taking the 2 months off that I had intended, I have applied to 20+ jobs, followed many recruiters on LinkedIn, had many interviews, gotten hired for 2 separate 2-3 month opportunities just to be told the night before that “things had shifted” and they no longer needed to book me without leaving me without any kill fee or safety net. As a former HOP who was used to hiring freelancers, and understanding that things do happen like this, I now empathize with the struggle.

When I was a freelance post-producer 10+ years ago, I don’t remember bookings being this volatile. I know the landscape of the industry has changed with the addition of streamers, and unfortunately my career transition came at a time with union strikes, layoffs, and advertiser jitters that I couldn’t have predicted when I gave my notice back in March. I couldn’t have predicted that I was going to have *feelings* about turning 40. I couldn’t have predicted that my sister was going to plan a wedding within 4 months of getting engaged and have to prioritize these events for those months. I couldn’t have predicted my brother was going to get pregnant and have to prioritize those events. I couldn’t have predicted my other sister was going to stop talking to me in the throws of her abusive relationship. While last year seemed so hopeful – new relationship, the promise of a new career, the prospect of moving in together and building a life with another person, this year has felt like I’m struggling to catch up and adapt to all of the transition around me and that I’ve embarked on personally myself. I don’t know how to take the next steps in any direction, and I certainly don’t know how to do them in the context of a relationship with a romantic partner.

Despair is the emotion that I come back to frequently, amongst the anxiety and fear that I feel. I don’t want to say I’m hopeless, but I am very very frustrated and everything seems impossible. I keep praying for next steps – show me the way! What am I supposed to be doing? I am desperate. I want this feeling to go away. I want to feel secure, like I have my feet under me so I can make the next move in other areas that I really want. Moving in with my partner, marriage, family. Working TOWARDS something, building the life I want. Is that the issue though? That I need to feel secure before I can feel like I can do those things? How can I feel secure in this transitional period that feels anything but safe?

So here I am, writing to try to make sense of my feelings. Stream of consciousness, getting out all the muck that will hopefully help this buzzy feeling in my chest subside. Please, please, show me the next steps on how to get out of this mess.

God.

I’m trying to figure out. Well, I’m going to stop myself there. My sponsor always tells me if I’m trying to figure something out, that’s my problem. I’m holding the reigns too much and not letting room for God. But I’m really struggling right now. It’s been 4 months since I’ve been out of work, save for the 2 weeks I worked in Sept, and I am no closer to finding a job or “figuring out” what’s next for me and making money. The last few jobs I’ve booked, I found out right after that they’ve been cancelled and the booking has been taken away.

After doing variations of the same job for the last 17 years, I’m also considering a complete career shift which can be difficult after making a certain amount of money for those years that I’ve become accostomed to. But as I sit here typing, I suppose any money is better than the $0 I’m currently bringing in.

The thing I’m struggling with the most right now is that fine line between staying humble and knowing what you’re worth. How do you tow that line so that you’re not swaying so much to one side or the other? If I am considering a shift, how can I maintain the salary or close to it given the experience and skills I can bring to the table while also remaining teachable and knowing I have something to learn?

The other transitions in my life – between roles – seemed to be a little more clear. After reception, I took the path towards becoming a producer. When the economy crashed and 4 of 5 editors left our LA office, I moved to the NY office. When I was let go from my first real job, I knew I could and wanted to freelance. When I found a company that offered comparable salary & balance to freelance life, I went staff. When that turned sour, I went with one of the editors to his new company and helped build it from the ground up. I stayed for 7.5 years, and after trying to grow in several different areas, felt as though I had accomplished everything I wanted in the role, in the company, and in boutique editorial in general. And that leaves me here. So. What else is out there? It’s not film, I didn’t love the people as much as I thought and I constantly felt out of place. TV could be interesting, but it doesn’t move the needle far enough for me. The people are somewhere between film & advertising people. Music? I thought I wanted that, coming from being a DJ at my college radio station. But I’m not sure I want to enter into that at this stage – weirdly, it’s become less important as I’ve gotten older.

I guess you could say I have a passion for social media – always have. I enjoy the connection it can bring, the content people create, and I too enjoy creating content. I enjoy consuming both written and video content. Maybe I can be a part of it somehow? I guess this is why I write, huh? To sort through the gunk in my head to get clarity?

Are you there God? It’s me, Meagen. I surrender my next steps to you. Can you help me see what path is right for me to take?

Love, Meagen

Well, that was quick. One day into reading my old blogs and I found it, the thing I used to be before post-production, the key to my passions, though I think I already knew deep down. I love to write. Or rather, I loved it before life and advertising sucked it out of me. It used to be the thing I did to make sense of the world and myself, and myself IN the world. It was a healthy coping mechanism before social media came along and then I found out my thing – my drug – on how to numb out. Numbing has replaced coping.

Anyway – “trying to be a writer” and actually making money from it is the thing that scares me the most in this world. I don’t think I’m good enough. I don’t even think I’m enough enough. And I can keep doing what I’ve been doing, sitting on the creative sidelines and searching for passions elsewhere, or I can sit down and dedicate some of my social media scrolling time into writing and/or pursuing creative passions. It’s time to accept me for me. I want to be a writer.

I have a 2nd interview tomorrow for a position I’m not sure I want, but would allow me to make some money while I still try and figure this part of myself out. So, I write this now because maybe I should stop looking at it like a prison sentence and more of a means to an end. I want to have money, I want to move in with my boyfriend, I want to be able to take vacations and afford life. And, I need money to do those things. So, let’s put our big girl panties on – ask for what we want / need and don’t be afraid because if it’s not the right opportunity, then it will become known to us.

So, while I have a little chat with myself on what it means to dedicate time to writing and which project we want to start with, enjoy the following little blog entry that I wrote March 5, 2005 at 11:41pm. Will I write that memoir my 21 year old self thought I would? Or will it be that semi-authbiographical script I’ve been putting off about my time at the radio station in college. Time will tell. But I’m ready. Fuck.

.writing.

i never wanted to be a writer. ever. that wasn’t one of the things that came up on the list of “what do you want to be when you grow up?” i have a book from kindergarden that says specifically that i wanted to be a singer and a mom. i haven’t decided which is less attainable: when i sing it sounds like a cat is regurtitating a hairball trying to sing along to an ashlee simpson rehearsal for saturday night live, then again, i can’t seem to find a stable boyfriend, let alone a husband who i would be willing to procreate with. take your pick.

i can’t remember if it was archeologist or astronaut that came next on my “to be” list. in second grade, i had seriously, like a 1/2 year on dinosaurs. and i was HOOKED. that and indiana jones like totally converted me. i was gonna find fossils so fucking fast, the archeological world wouldn’t know what hit them. i used to dig out by the moutains in my front yard, cracking open rocks with a hammer hoping to find rare crystals or maybe a t-rex skull. either/or. that lasted about a month. i never found any crystals. or dinosaur bones. i just found bugs. and i hate bugs. archeology would have to be left to indiana.

i get airsick, so astronauting wasn’t gonna work out. plus, i suck at physics and after i saw apollo 13, i realized i probably would suck at being an engineer as well. that pretty much ruled out astronauting.

i thought about actress, as every young girl does. unfortunately, my acting skills are less than stellar, and i get sweaty, nervous, and blank out when i have to recite things in front of people. i’m funny, but my little nerve problem pretty much ruled out comedian as well.

i’m going to college for nutrition. but i don’t want to be a nutritionist. i thought i wanted to do research. but i’m bad at labs. and i hate them. although, labcoats are pretty cool. that’s the only thing i like about lab. hmmm. this is really going nowhere. let me get to the point.

the point is…that i never thought i wanted to be a writer. my mom gave me a diary when i was 6. i remember it like it was yesterday. it was purple, and i wrote my name in the front of it. and i used to write in it a lot. mostly about stupid things like what i did that day, what boys i liked, what girls i hated. let’s just put it this way. when i first started writing, i had to ask my mom how to spell vacation.

as the oldest child, i spent a lot of time alone. i liked to play alone. i used to write letters to imaginary friends with names like “jennifer” and “vixie” and “lucretia.” i used to run a newspaper and deliver newspapers to my family members’ doors. i used to write stories that were EXACTLY like fairly tales, but i’d just change the name. like..instead of cinderella, i wrote a story called “vickie + vixie,” and it was cinderella from the stepsisters point of view. wow, i can’t believe i just remembered that. i can’t believe i WROTE that. damn, i was a clever little bugger. fuckin’ 8 years old and crankin’ out fuckin’ hemingway shit. ok, maybe not hemingway, but still good.

creative assignments were never a problem for me. papers, essays, stories, poems. as long as i had inspiration, i was golden. but, for some reason…it never occured to me that i could -do- anything with it. with writing, i mean. writing was just something i did for fun. it’s my hobby.

i’m nearing the end of my college career, and i think i’m finally realizing what i want to do. i think the key to being happy in your profession is finding something you like to do, finding something that you can do for money and doing it for “work.” it won’t even -be- work. i’ve been finding myself getting excited looking at jobs on www.mediabistro.com. they’ve got plenty of creative jobs. writing jobs. entertainment jobs. i want to be a part of the creative world. i think that’s really what i want to do. and i want to write a memoir. regardless of whether people would read it or not. it’ll be like the diary of the ordinary or something. nothing spectacular, but something everyone can relate to.

i guess it all makes sense, though. on why i couldn’t see it. people always tell me how much they enjoy readnig my entries, how much it means to them. and i love it. it’s so flattering. i just…didn’t see myself as the writer-type. writers are loners. i mean, they sit and they brood and they smoke until they get inspiration, and are up at all hours scribbling away until the inspiration fades, and then they are back. thinking, brooding, smoking.

think about it. i’ve got asthma. i would make a terrible stereotype.

I saw a post on LinkedIn today as I was browsing for jobs about a guy who was going through a career transition and signed up for a 6 month career transition workshop to aid him through the process. He said it was helpful because it “flushed out a lot of the noise in [his] head so that [he] could see more clearly what really matters to [him] and what [he’s] good at, separate from advertising.” He goes on to say that he “never wanted to be good at advertising because he just doesn’t care about it,” and that he used to believe “the only reason why he was ever successful in the advertising business was because he hates it. But he always liked the people – especially the ones who were a little off. And agencies were full of them – some more so than others.”

I identify with all of it, especially the bit about liking the people. I never set out to be in post-production. I was a wide eyed girl fresh out of college who was bitten by the entertainment bug and ended up in a subsection of it where I felt at home amongst all the weirdos of post. I tried to work in music, something that I was passionate about at the time. But through various circumstances, one being lying about where I lived which was an hour away at my parents house, I ended up here. I started from the bottom and now the whole team frickin’ here.

So, similarly to this guy on LinkedIn, I am embarking on a quest to find myself in the hopes that it will lead me to happiness and fulfillment in my next role. Who was I and what really matters to me, outside of post-production? It’s taken me 3 months off of work to finally emerge and be ready to look at myself in the mirror and actually want to find the answer to that question. I’m not sure I wanted to change before. There is something so familiar about all of it. But that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s right for me anymore. And while it WOULD BE NICE to make some money while going through this transition, I think I’m going to have to surrender to the fact that it might take me a little longer than the 3 months I set aside to figure out where I want to go and who I want to be.

So, I think the first step is mining my old journals. Who was I, prior to my life in post? Who did I want to be? What happened? If I look back, it’s so clear that I stopped writing mere weeks after I started in this business. It really can, and did, consume my life. So, do I want to be there again? Do I want to write? Is there a way to document my transitional period on the tiktoks or something and be a content creator? IS THAT WHAT I’M SUPPOSED TO BECOME?!

I’m ready, though, for whatever it is. To stop living in fear. To take the next step. Which today, is writing and publishing this blog for the first time in what, a year and a half? (where does the time go).

Here’s to 2023 and me….

i am so crispy today. i’m having a lot of anxiety and i don’t feel like anything is working out and i’m completely overwhelmed by everything that is happening at my job and the constant changes that i’m forced to keep pivoting to fix to accommodate everyone. i am not a miracle worker, but yet a lot of the times i am able to make miracles happen so people keep asking me to do them. but i have to remember that i’m only one person who is doing the best she can, and sometimes a miracle isn’t possible and this is all we can offer and it has to be enough.

but i don’t understand why everything seems to not be working / break on the same day. i’m sitting down to stupid write and listen to stupid relaxing music and my stupid bluetooth or spotify or something isn’t working and it’s just reminding me of my website breaking when all i wanted to do was write and keep a habit and i don’t understand why everything just seems so freaking hard and annoying right now. oh also, i’m pmsing and we’re 3 days away from the 5 year anniversary of my dad’s death. so, i guess it’s just that.

i was telling a friend yesterday that i’ve gotten better about accepting that this week is always harder for me than i realize. i’m aware of it. and i’m moving into acceptance of it. so how can i be supportive of myself in it? slowing down. eating nutritious foods. letting go of my todo list. meditating. writing. and just letting myself feel all the crispy emotions. it’s ok to be frustrated and angry and sad and discouraged and depressed. i know enough now that these feelings won’t last forever. and i just have to allow myself the space to feel them so i can move through them. so with that, i’m going to find a shadow boxing workout and punch some stuff out. because F this.

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