Money vs. Passion
I really feel the only people that hate to talk about money are the ones who've always had it.
I am always changing my life.
I am bored easily, my attention span is short. I have been self employed since 2013. During that time I have been a food blogger, a recipe developer, a nutrition consultant, a personal trainer, a gym owner, a virtual assistant, a writer, a rug maker, and a web designer. My career path flows in a way that makes a lot of sense to me and little sense to anyone else. It’s all related. I feel comfortable and proud of my ability to pivot.
In the same ten years, I have lived in ten places. I have lived in my current home for about two and a half years, which is a longevity I’ve rarely experienced, a longevity that blows my mind. In 2018 I lived in five homes. I also hiked 1200 miles, and of course somewhere in the back of my head I do account for the different scraps of ground I slept on each night. I move. I am a mover. It is so much harder for me to stay still than to keep going.
Web design was a job that I stumbled into. I closed the queer powerlifting gym that I’d worked so hard to open. I got divorced. I filed for bankruptcy. I moved to Tucson. I spent a good chunk of a year in the backcountry. The pandemic hit. Never have I felt so much malaise as the moment I realized it was no longer responsible to spend all of my time walking from small town to small town. I went through a break up. I moved back to Portland. I sat on Camila’s orange couch and I thought “what the fuck am I doing with my life?” A virtual assistant client asked me if I knew how to make websites. I did not know how to make websites, but I have never in my life let not knowing how to do something stop me from doing it anyway. I painstakingly taught myself to code via YouTube. I cried in frustration many times and within a month’s time…a website was born. My client paid me $200 and I thought CHA-CHING! Let’s just say I didn’t keep an hourly rate in mind.
Web design has changed my life. It’s lucrative. It’s a well respected job. I have never had a lucrative or particularly well respected job. I happen to have a bachelor’s AND a master’s of fine art (+ 200k of student loan debt BAY-BEE!). Making aesthetically pleasing websites is nice for my brain. I like to create ~vibes~, to use my intuitive Pisces nature to feel into who my clients are and make a digital representation that thrills them.
Four years since my first website, I know that I am good at design. I am fairly booked out without too much hustle and I am usually excited to show the world the sites that I’ve made. I have an eye for flow and I like to neatly organize people’s scattered thoughts and talents. Am I passionate about design? Frankly, no. I LIKE design. I think it’s IMPORTANT for people to have solid digital representation. But understanding these facts does not generate passion for me. Web design is my job for money. Writing is my job on Earth. Writing, feeling and embodiment. Those are the things that I am here to do.
Four months ago I thought to myself I am ready to be done with web design. The thought surprised me. To have a pleasant job that has provided me with abundant financial security and doesn’t tax me too much has been a gift. My clients are very cool. Why would I be done? Why would I do something harder that might pay me less?
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A few months before career pivot entered my mind, my very cool friend Hannon told me about their experience with Smith College’s MSW program. They were studying to be a therapist! They loved it! It’s an expensive school but has a gigantic endowment so maybe it is cheap after all! I liked this information for Hannon and wistfully said “I’d do that if it weren’t too late/if I didn’t already have too much debt/If I weren’t more or less settled.”
It’s never too late. Debt is irrelevant in some ways (by which I mean - I am not an owning class person, I have almost nothing to lose. I don’t plan to take out any loans for houses or cars. If I get in over my head, I have zero qualms about filing for bankruptcy. I am financially solvent and aware of my relationship to earning, spending and money. My loan payback is income based until it disappears and doesn’t currently affect my life in any staggering way). Most importantly, I will never be settled. Settled, for me, is non-traditional at best and non-existent at worst.
When I thought I am ready to be done with web design, my next thought was I will go to Smith College and become a therapist. To this I responded out loud— Excuse me, WHAT, bitch? How was Smith college as an option even in there? How was it so quick to the forefront when I thought I never thought about it again?
The short story, is I applied. I applied to Smith and I applied to Portland State, because that makes sense, too. Hannon armed me with some very important information - As I said, Smith’s endowment is huge. If one needs to, you can and should negotiate your scholarship upward. Did this ever occur to any of you?! It did NOT occur to me. Offer one is not the final offer! Why didn’t I know sooner? I have to guess this not knowing is a product of being shy, traumatized, and socialized female. I am used to taking what I can get. Hannon gently let me know that I simply don’t have to.
The scholarship I was offered is almost enough. I would be paying 6K a year to go to a school that I consider to be the holy grail. I will be asking for more, because 6K a year + less work = I probably need more to make it happen. I tell you the numbers because I think financial transparency is gobsmackingly important. When I was 13 years old, I asked my mom for 75 cents to ride the bus and she called me a never-ending money vacuum. By 14, I had my first job. By 16, I was working full time. By 16 and a half I lived alone. My financial life has been precarious and self-made. I really feel the only people that hate to talk about money are the ones who’ve always had it.
So.
Once again, I am here in the void, here in the pivot. Maybe I will go to Smith? Maybe I will go to PSU. This will be hard. I am not used to being busy. When I started web designing I was challenged constantly. Now that I am fluent in my coding skills, I could do it in my sleep. To be a witness to the private trauma of individuals will be different. I may not make as much— in fact I WON’T make as much for probably four or five years at least. I have no back up plan or safety net. And that’s ok.
I feel like I was just born.
Every day I want to learn something new.
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