31 and time to grow up?

I'm 31 years old. After 8.5 years of job security, high salaries, promotions, raises, and too many pats on the back to even begin counting, I left my career as an IT Consultant in corporate America in February of 2014. I left to pursue a career in freelance writing, editing, and perhaps acting. I copy write, ghost write, and edit pretty much anything. I'm not sure if acting will ever pay my bills or if that's even my goal, but it will always be how I spend a good part of my time. I'm finding a growing passion for writing and running my own business, and I'm open to either writing or acting getting more of my attention at any given moment.

This blog will serve a couple of purposes, if I choose to stick with it.

One, I like informal writing and the idea that it might entertain or advise others. I spend a lot of my days writing for other people or editing their words, and I love it, but I need to put my own words out here too. I'm also writing my own book, but more on that later.

Two, I think we are in an exciting time in which many people are learning to work for themselves or find more flexible ways to earn a living. In some ways it's really easy to go out on your own with something like writing, but it's not without challenges. If I can give people some help along the way or encouragement to give it a try, I want to. I think the world will get better each time someone decides to pursue a more creative or passionate way of earning a living: one that comes with more freedom, less meetings, and less bureaucracy.

So I'm writing this for me and, if you're an aspiring freelancer, I'm writing this for you. Well, maybe not this particular post, but I'll get there.

October 2008, 25 years old:
Shortest hair yet (and since)

Today I just want to touch briefly on something I'm struggling with ... and that is how hard it can be to make truly big life decisions. Not just the ones that seem big, but the ones that are big for you because you're you. Some people struggle to decide on a big haircut ... my drastic haircuts usually happen on a whim with some scissors in the bathroom, to be fixed later by a professional. No, I never regret it later.

I've never really had to make a decision that felt big to me. That may seem crazy to people who know me, or even only know me as much as you've learned so far from this blog, but any big decisions to this point in my life have felt like inevitabilities. The answer presented itself. The choice seemed obvious, at least to me.

Picking a college is one of the first big choices made by many American kids. In short, when I walked onto the Virginia Tech campus, I fell in love. I knew I had to make a decision, it was just a matter of which school. My reality at the time did not give me any room to consider not going to college, so I had to pick one, and the choice seemed clear.

Interviewing for jobs my senior year has some interesting highlights that might get shared later, but the important point here is that it was another obvious choice for me. Getting a "good job" right out of college was again the only option under my present reality. I struggled through interviews with "the big dogs," and hated all of them. The feeling was mutual. When I interviewed with CGI, still a great company, but with some notable culture differences from my prior interviewers, I actually enjoyed myself. I wanted to work there, no thought required. When they offered me work in Atlanta or Fairfax, Atlanta seemed the obvious choice. I'd heard a lot of bad press on Northern Virginia having gone to school with a bunch of kids that came from there (since then I've realized they probably weren't the best source of information, but anyway ... ); Atlanta was closer to my parents and had a cool reputation in my 22-year-old mind, and so I went.

May 2005: Graduation Day with a good friend

Since moving to Atlanta, I've moved neighborhoods and I bought my own condo. I decided not to get married. I bought my first car. I quit coaching volleyball. Obviously "the big guy" (at least that's how others see it) is my recent career change. Oh, and I've had many a drastic haircut. All of these decisions have one thing in common: they never felt like something I was picking, but rather going with the obvious choice ... what I had to do ... not because I didn't have freedom, but because it was just so clear to me what I wanted within the options I had. When you're having daily nightmares about coaching because the parents are crazy, when the best hybrid on the market at the time is a Prius and you just love it, when you only have one really good choice for a condo in your price range in the zip code where you want to live ... some decisions just fall into your lap.

Big girl pants?

Okay, so now, I want to move. I want to move out of my condo in Atlanta. That's the only thing I know for sure. I don't know if I want to move 5 miles southeast to a part of town I know I'd like ... or if I want to move to Seattle, or Amsterdam, or Charlotte, or LOS ANGELES? (Okay, no, probably not L.A.) This is new territory for me. I have no deadline for making a decision. I have no gut feelings telling me what to do, other than move neighborhoods. I have several priorities floating around in my head and adding to the confusion including being close to family (and which family members?), being close to the film industry, getting as fresh of a start as possible yet not wanting to run from my problems, weather, cost of living ... and tying this all into the theme of this blog, when you're a freelancer like me, the options are ENDLESS.

All of this has made me realize that if I move right now, no matter where I choose, it may be the biggest decision I've made so far ... because it's the first one that feels like it really requires decision-making, weighing options, and taking a risk. So that's got me wondering ... at 31 years old, am I finally going to be forced to grow up and put on my big girl pants? Well, I suppose it's time.