I quit my job, now what…?

Almost every single person who has worked a customer service, so called survival job, knows the feeling of wanting to get out. The love-hate relationship with it. You love your colleagues (I was lucky enough to have amazing coworkers) and to some extent you love the adrenaline rush, but it is endlessly draining. You know you are meant for something different, but you just can´t get out of the cycle of always ending up going in for another shift. (Even when you have said “This is it. I am quitting after today.” about a million times) And you have to go back to another shift, because the bills have to be paid.

So you end up clocking in for each shift you are assigned. I would say living for the weekend, but as a restaurant worker you also work weekends. And you try to work on your dream, whatever that may be, on the side when you have the energy. But let´s be honest, you are so drained after a shift you just switch on Gossip Girl for the 500th time and doze off somewhere around Serena and Blair being on the outs again.

I was living like that for years and I kept dreaming of a day when I wouldn´t have to repeat the cycle all over again. Emphasis on dreaming, because I was always too tired, stressed or distracted to do anything to actually make my escape. My partner also worked the same survival job during school as I did and he as well got stuck there. Living was essentially never seeing each other even though we live together and then when we did see each other it was for short moments and it was so difficult to be present with each other.

But then, in true all-or-nothing fashion we ripped the band-aid off and we both quit. For. Good.

We made a decision to both jump into the unknown, be delusional, hope for the best and essentially go into freefall with nothing but dreams.

I quit my job on the last day of June, but we both made the decision about 3 months earlier. Those three months were filled with anticipation, at times straight up anxiety, hopefulness and not going to lie, tears. I feel like I was leaving such a big part of my life behind, which I did, but the processing of it felt a lot more bittersweet than I thought it would. There was a lot of talking of all the things we would do, see, experience and build during our new life. And then the new life arrived. Our last day at work and the off the ledge.

We have made plans to move for a little while to my home country, Hungary and there, outside of our bubble in Finland, try and build our businesses, fill our lives with creativity and art and find ourselves again. At first we wanted to shake our selves awake though, se we booked a month long backpacking trip around the Balkans. So our to-do list after moving consisted of fun, freedom, travel and work.

Well…

Our backpacking trip is now done and it was the best trip I´ve ever had. I learned so many new things, saw both myself and my partner in a whole new light, took so many pictures and enjoyed all the different cultures. (More on the trip in a later post <3) When our trip was nearly over it started to dawn on me that career-wise I still have no idea what I am doing, that I haven´t built anything, money we budgeted for two months was starting to run pretty low after a month already and maybe this all was a terrible idea? I tried shaking it off and we did have an amazing trip in the end. And coming back to Budapest was also filled with excitement as my now fiancé proposed to me! After celebrating our engagement we went straight to Sziget Festival, which is a huuuge festival in Budapest.

And now this is where the anxiety kicks in and I just decided to start to write.

Mid-Sziget I got quite sick, which is no surprise with all of the excitement, new life phase and constantly being on the go. My body needed the rest desperately. Unfortunately it started demanding rest after the third day of Sziget with still two to go, so I needed to accept that the festival is going to be cut short for me. It just got worse when I got a rejection letter from a job the same day. A job I really really wanted and spent a lot of time doing the application for during our trip.

Two days later after resting and already a couple doses of antibiotics my head was clearing up. I realized I didn´t really quit my job and came here to work for a new boss right away, so it was a good thing I didn´t get the job. I wanted to freelance and build a business where I am not tied to one place and where I could live a life that is filled with creativity. But then, like a truck it hit me: where do I even start from? I already mentioned all the planning and excitement before leaving Finland. Well. Now was my time to bring all of that into life. But it all felt so much and endlessly paralyzing that again I wondered, if this was a terrible idea? The whole world is open and I can be whoever or whatever I want to be. My only issue? I have no idea who am I, what am I doing and how to do it?

The platforms to post on are endless… TikTok, Instagram, Substack.. Or should I maybe start a podcast, like people have said I should? I need to post photos, but I am like six countries and fifteen photoshoots behind. What if someone I know sees something I post in the humble beginning of my influencer era or what if no one sees and no one cares?

I used to think that quitting my job would make me feel like I FINALLY started living my life, but in that moment I felt like I was drowning in it.

So I decided to write… Just let my thoughts flow kind of hoping nobody would see this, but also hoping someone who needs to read this will find it.

I have gotten a lot of editing done as well and I swear I will get to posting them (this is to hold me accountable).

Writing has helped me realize that I have already taken the biggest leap possible, but now it is time for baby steps. One sentence, one post, one good exchange with someone who commented on one of my posts. And then hoping that everything will build up eventually.

I love trust the process photoshoots and projects and this is THE biggest trust the process project I have ever started. So I am just trying to enjoy the journey that for now, I have no idea where it will take me.