...To Giving Up

I've never thought of myself as a quitter.

I'm too stubborn.

I do a lot of things in my life just to prove a point, ask my husband. However, there is something to be said about a person who knows when it's time to walk away.  

Whenever I hear the word 'quit' it seems to have such a negative connotation.  

Couldn't they just follow through? Be committed to whatever they set out to be committed to?

Nobody likes a quitter.

Well nobody likes someone who's miserable either.

Enter me stage left three years ago.

Three years ago, I had been in Houston for a year and had nothing to show for it. I had signed up to be a substitute teacher while I could transfer my teaching licenses to Texas from Arkansas, but I had never actually taken a substitute position.  I had become a professional couch surfer, stay at home dog mom, and basically a huge waste of space.

And while being a professional couch surfer sounds great now and I think I would be really really good at it John (**please tell me to be a stay at home dog mom again**), when you're 25 and everyone around you seems to have their lives all figured out, it makes you begin to feel purposeless. 

Now don't get me wrong, I was trying to find jobs.  I'd fill in application after application, only to twiddle my thumbs waiting for any kind of response.  Finally, I got the response I'd been waiting for. It was a marketing position for a private school that offered all kinds of hoity-toity activities for kids and with my communications degree and masters in education, this seemed like the perfect fit! 

No longer would I have to dodge the "So Sarah, what do you do?" question. 

No longer would I have to make the same lame joke about being 'funemployed'. 

No longer would I go grocery shopping at eleven on a Wednesday with all of the stay at home moms and their screaming children.  

I. Was. Ecstatic. 

I started my first day at this new job right after the new year in 2013. I hit the ground running.  Fake it till you make it, amiright? Needless to say, I was in way over my head. And again, I was slowly becoming miserable.  I was thrown into a job where I was responsible for an entire team of marketers.  Like people were asking me for directions.  I had an intern for goodness sake. 

Didn't these people read my resume?!

Underprepared and overwhelmed should have been stamped on my forehead. But, never one to give up (remember that stubborn comment?) I tried my best to push through and give it my all... all the while I was drowning.  

Well, three years ago this week, the walls came tumbling down. 

I couldn't take it a day longer.

After crying, having my step-dad talk me off the ledge, and a really big 'come to Jesus' moment, I decided that my life, while it was miserable being at home, was much more miserable being at this job. 

So, I quit.

I went to lunch and never came back.

I know what you're thinking, that sounds really bad, but the situation was terrible, and I'm not even going to get into the details. 

But I did it. 

And the wave of relief I felt rush over me was like that feeling you get when someone cancels plans that you didn't want to go to anyway... the best, right?

I quit that awful job February 2nd. 

Remember those substitute positions I was signed up for but never took?

Well I finally bit the bullet and took one February 3rd.

One day after I quit my job and felt like a complete failure at 'adulting', I took this random sub job and this random school that I knew nothing about.

Three years later, and I am still at that same school teaching my own 3rd grade class.

Crazy, right?

Do things happen for a reason?

Yes.

Should you run away every time something gets hard?

No.

You just have to know your limitations, know when something is impairing your quality of life, and know when it's time to 'give up'.