People Can Do Hard(ish) Things

So, here's the really awkward thing - like an ex I never had, I have come crawling back to this blog.

Why?

It all started when I got fired from a job at a horrific Charter School in Brooklyn where they wouldn't let the kids move their hands or talk to each other. Most of my students didn't even know each others names a month into the school year. So, yeah - prosecute me for letting a student tell me about their day or ask me for a band-aid when they're bleeding. Or god forbid, go to the damn bathroom.

Well, that was in October and they successfully ruined the favorite part of my year, witch season. I was grieving a loss and experiencing my first real heartbreak. But instead of it being one person, it was 33 eight-year-olds that I knew I could no longer protect from a system (or the people) that wanted them to be voiceless.

The point was, I was really having a horrible time and trying to hide it from everyone else around me. So, I moved back home. Well, not really - I still had to pay rent and finish out the eight months on my lease, but there was something healing about getting to spend time with my parents and let them talk me off a very steep ledge while cosplaying a retired man who drove a truck and lived-and-breathed the Mets.

What was I going to do with my life? That was the question I was asking myself. And everyone else was asking it too.

Would I teach again? Well, I wasn't sure if I could experience that loss again.

I could go into sales, or marketing, or (god forbid) corporate communications! I could use the pieces of my personality that are serious and detached and begin a career in something I had absolutely zero passion for. But, I needed money to pay rent and I needed something to tell my parents when they came home from their jobs, so it was something I was ready to pursue. To pack in the idea of creativity and make money and circle back on topics and touch base.

As if I was working a post-graduate program in bothering anyone within a two-person connection of me, I became the most social person in the world. I was grabbing coffees with Social Media gurus, eating lunch with Corporate baddies, and promenading with Publishing people. I'm not even kidding, there's a promenade in Brooklyn Heights and we ventured on it eating Kouign Amann and getting advice on the best bars she used to frequent in New York.

I almost took a ferry, I saw an artist's studio, I found out that most industries are going through intensive restructuring that included a lack of job security. Many of the people I met with had experienced close friends getting fired and were in fact, worried about their own futures. Some expressed discontent in their industries, one going so far as to say, "I still don't know what I want to be when I grow up." She was well into her career and incredibly established at her company.

In short, no one could help me land a job. But, everyone could wish me well or tell me that I was going to be okay. I knew it was bad when a 30-year-in-the business Head Hunter told me that things were looking rough for the job search, that he couldn't help me, and the only focus I needed to have was keeping my head up. Yikes, not exactly promising.

But, I still had my job at Free People, my friends, and my family. I made lists, I sent follow-ups, I drank dirty martinis on the weekends and diet coke on the weekdays. I went on aimless walks listening to Successful by Ariana Grande, and became a regular at three different coffee shops in Brooklyn. I wrote so much, in the time I had between burning my retinas with Linkedin. But of course, I was discontented by my life. My very repetitive, seemingly purposeless life.

I kind of missed being terrified to walk into work every day, getting told I couldn't do anything right by my co-teacher, or being the person to brighten other people's days in the midst of the darkness. I missed the purpose in trying to remedy other people's messes. I missed financial freedom and having a real life. I missed being able to tell other people exactly what it is that I do.

As much as I was planting seeds and making a network, I was so miserable and honestly, pretty depressed. I fielded questions from the people in my life. "What did you do today?" Well, the same thing I do everyday. I applied to jobs, I talked to a Journalist who told me the industries dying, and I drank enough iced coffee to put me in a psych ward.

Even as I talked to these career professionals, I realized I couldn't picture myself doing anything they had shared with me. I had a good friend tell me that I needed to do something I was passionate about, once I told her I had just been applying to jobs to write about data and AI at banks. It was like every single pathway was causing an alarm to go off in my head and say, hey this seems like it might not be for you. Which was okay, because I wasn't getting any leads anyway. But it wasn't okay, because WHAT WAS I GOING TO DO.

Down on my luck, experiencing a daily melt down fueled by an existential crisis,

I signed up for a comedy writing class. I know, we've seen these plot of my life before. For those of you that don't know, I took a Stand-Up Comedy class in College. But, this new class was different. It was meant for people who wanted a career in comedy. Real professionals. It felt humiliating and exciting in a way because by stepping foot in that door I had to admit that I thought I was funny. Even worse, I had to open myself up to the possibility that I actually wasn't.

The first Monday at 6 pm, I walked to the water of Brooklyn, to The Second City, and I told myself: Listen, if you're the least talented person in the room, that's okay. If no one laughs at your sketches, or you get nervous in front of your peers, the world will keep on spinning. This risk you made yourself take will at least be a door you let yourself open, so if you do end up at an office somewhere relegated to cranking out copy, you'd know it was because you couldn't crack it.

In all honestly, sketch comedy didn't come easily to me. In writing, you hear a lot about POV or writer's voice. I was having a tough time finding that. Most comedy you listen to is outrageous and I wasn't sure that I was. I knew I was weird, awkward at times, and pretty quick with it. But, how was that going to translate to a premeditated sketch about a doctor diagnosing a hypochondriac? It wouldn't.

Of course, I flopped. I cried to my parents, as I tend to do, unsure if I could even show up with a piece of writing that felt so not me and so embarrassingly desperate for laughs. I pride myself on being subdued in my humor, and I was afraid to come right out with a joke and say - hey, please please laugh at this, I think I'm really funny! Because that wasn't the point and the more you try to be funny, the less you are.

The next thing I know, I'm writing a completely new sketch 15 minutes before class about a woman who's never had gouda before. Inspired by my own real life experience being awkward. The world kept on spinning when I had to assign characters and jokes landed or didn't. It became fun, how can I get my classmates to laugh today?

A room of writers and you can imagine how in our head we can get at times. Sharing your writing is super vulnerable. But, the stakes were so low. We were all there to enhance our craft, not perfect it. It was about having fun and getting silly, downright stupid. My instructor, a journalist-turned producer-turned writer told us as much as that.

The remedy for a group of writer's performance anxiety. Apparently, Improv?

If you've met me, you know this as a fact. My face gets red when everyone looks at me. As a rule, I try to look at attention as something I get over with, instead of something I seek out. I can be pretty quiet and I hate public speaking, even at something as small as a dinner table. It's just the way my brain is wired and it's become very normalized to me.

Imagine an improv exercise where you're an expert on everything and the audience can ask you questions. Only, your hands are behind your back and the person behind you becomes your hands. As much as they have to follow what you say, you have to follow what they do. If no one else volunteers to go, would you?

For some reason, I did.

And it was the best five minutes of my life. Why? It was basically successful rejection therapy. A room of people's eyes on me as I explained to them how to roll a joint. Something I'd never done before. Usually, I'd feel pressured to force bravado or wisdom, but I leaned into my naivety. It wasn't about me being funny, it was about me being comfortable speaking the way I normally do in front of a group of people. And guess what, it was pretty damn funny to pretend to be an expert on rolling a joint and then accidentally calling it a blunt.

All the while, I was job searching or picking up shifts or taking meetings. I was changing and I knew I was, but this time it was different. I wasn't changing in spite of myself, I was remembering exactly who I was, long before social rejections or harsh words had made me meek.

The same way that working with children had reminded me of the goodness in the world, writing with the intentions of being silly reminded me that I was a fucking freak and as much as that had been something I'd try to hide under politeness or a fresh blowout, it was going to come out one way or another. It was freeing. Not every joke I told landed, but a lot of them did. That didn't mean I became overly-confident and boisterous. It just meant that I finally was comfortable with who I was and I wasn't searching for another better version of myself somewhere in the past.

I woke up in the middle of the night and I could feel it in my skull, my prefrontal cortex had nearly finalized itself. I was aware of the fact that the life I was living wasn't some passive journey I had to take, it was an opportunity to make something out of myself with the tools I'd been given.

That didn't mean I wouldn't make mistakes, or be goofy and odd, but it meant that I realized the power was in my hands, not other peoples. Do you know how insane that is to come out of my mouth? Me, the chronic people-pleaser with social anxiety and a fear of being seen. She was having tough conversations with people in her life, meeting strangers, and being completely herself in front of a group of strangers.

So thank you to the Charter School that fired me because I had a moral compass. Thank you to anyone who ever made me feel like I was weird. Turns out you were right. Thank you to any adult who took 30 minutes out of their life to tell me about their career and life and the ambitions that motivate them. Thank you to all the unique people of New York who have inspired me in more ways than any ways you'll ever know.

You all created an independent person with a lot of stories to tell. ;)

Until next time,

Alex