I used to thrive in chaos

Please slow down, I didn't know how to

I’ve made countless big changes in the past 2+ years and I’ve been without a job more than I’ve been in one. A younger version of myself would be appalled.

I grew up believing more was better. Busier was more productive and more successful.

Since high school my day-to-day schedule was insane. I played high school and competitive club soccer which meant endless games and practices with hours of driving to and from. Half of the school year was spent with double practices: morning high school practice at 6:30am, a full school day, homework, and then evening practice from 7-9pm.

By college, I let soccer go as a way to make more time for something new, yet I found other ways to fill my schedule in a similar manner. I truly believed that I worked better when I was busier, that I achieved more when everything was scheduled out and perfectly fit in.

Was this a false belief? I’m still not sure.

Some days I still think I work better when I have a bigger to do list. Or is that just old beliefs hanging on?

In 4 years of college, I held 5 internships. I worked an on-campus job. I was on the board of a student run non-profit and the executive team of my sorority. I lived abroad in Germany for a semester studying international business. I traveled around the U.S. and the world. I partied a lot and participated in as many social events around campus as possible, while also exploring events and happenings around LA. I even graduated on the dean’s list with a business degree.

I took the final interview for a job over the phone in a car full of 4 other girl friends on a roadtrip to Vegas for a big senior trip two weeks before graduation. I spent the weekend before finals at Stagecoach and drove home just in time for my first final that Monday. I was offered the job and started my first full-time job 2 weeks after I graduated.

It never stopped.

I never stopped.

A few months into the job I distinctly remember feeling like life was a bit boring.

What? How?

I was an avid gym goer at 6am with a packed breakfast and lunch for work and a regular at the Tuesday and Thursday 5:30am Orange Theory class — insane, I know. Never again.

I would finish work having already completed a morning workout and head home. I suddenly had more time than I knew what to do with.

Without homework, internships, extracurricular activity, school events, sorority chapter meetings, and studying, I realized how absurdly busy I kept myself for years and suddenly my evenings felt a bit… empty.

A certain pride bubbled up realizing how capable I was in handling SO much before.

I craved more - this time as an adult. It was what I was used to.

Work quickly became incredibly social. For anyone that has worked in the ad industry or anyone that hasn’t but is familiar with Mad Men, you know it can be very social.

Weeknights now included outings with my team to concerts, Soul Cycle classes, games with box seats, manis and pedis, fancy dinners, branded parties, pop-up events, and even pool parties.

It was a new version of fun and the next level of access to a different side of LA I felt privileged to receive.

Then, life took a funny turn. 5 months into my first job, I was filling out paperwork for a medical leave of absence. I remember the Head of HR bringing me into her office as I sat in pain with tears in my eyes as she explained to me what a medical leave was and how the company could support. I was in a car accident as a passenger on Halloween that left me with a terrible whiplash. I spent a year in physical therapy and learned how to advocate for my needs at work. I was consumed and busied with my own healing. As the pain subdued and my energy came back, the reality of the job began to land.

The work was boring. The social activities were no longer enticing. The fancy invites no longer masked the lack of stimulation and progress I was making in the office. It was plug and play on autopilot.

I sat in the Director of my department’s office for a meeting looking around and taking in his behavior, his work, and his happiness. If this was the path ahead for me, I would be miserable.

It was clear, I needed something new. I needed busier, faster paced, and more interesting. After countless interviews within the same industry, I realized they all led to the same path so I pivoted. In college, I interned at a few startups. At a startup, there’s more work that moves really fast, but more importantly more freedom to execute and run things.

After almost 2 years at the ad agency, I accepted a job in operations at a tech startup in its early months. Our team barely had a manager. My interview was super lax and didn’t give me any real evidence about the role I’d be accepting.

It just felt right. I left knowing I’d get the job and that I’d say yes to the unknown.

3 months later, we were the fasting growing startup on record and our European office was launching. I was sent to Amsterdam to hire and launch an international office and operation.

I loved this energy. I thrived in it. It was busy, fast, new, exciting, and absolute chaos, but more importantly it felt BIG. I felt important.

Just before my one year anniversary, I switched to a traveling team with more power and influence. Little did I know that as of February 2019, I would be at LAX airport every single Monday morning, excluding the week of Christmas, for a year.

I spent 51 weeks living out of a suitcase, flying 2-3x a week.

Oct 31, 2019 I spent Halloween at an airport.

By that summer, I was a shell of myself. I was depleted, burnt out and exhausted. My mom was really concerned.

Yet, I had other big exciting happenings to stay engaged with. I was the maid of honor for my sister’s wedding set for early November.

I just needed to make it through all of my committed responsibilities then figure out how to change things… later.

By Thanksgiving I was begging my manager to switch me to a non-traveling team. With the holidays around the corner, he tasked me with setting up a team to take over my role so I could switch teams.

When the team was ready, I was handed one final project before I could switch. I executed the project, on the road in another city again, one week before the global pandemic shut down the world.

I finally switched teams, however our entire operation and business was on hold and up in the air.

At least I finally stopped traveling?

Yet, now my apartment, my home, my day-to-day life was unfamiliar to me. I forgot how to grocery shop for more than 2 meals at a time. Throw in a global pandemic and everything felt weird and unusual, even my home and my bedroom was uncomfortable.

Unlucky for me, my new team ran the latest priority project to test out a new operational model that would roll out globally if we were successful.

My dining room table, my couch, and my bedroom became consumed by this new chaos. The new project was wild and many unforeseen events caused even more troubles. This time the chaos and busyness felt exhausting. Changing teams didn’t resolve my apathy.

Then, local unrest and riots brought extra heat to the challenge.

In June, I went to a park to have wine for my roommate’s birthday, since park hang outs were the new social norm.

I noticed several notifications on my phone on a weekend day that should be quiet. Unbeknownst to our company, our operations had just been placed in the cross fire and literal flames of the LA protests. I was the only person who noticed the alerts, so I stepped in to handle it.

Part of me still loved the chaos.

Several glasses of wine in with a significant buzz on, I was back on my couch testing out my novice coding skills hoping to hack together the data needed to pull our operations out of the area. I spent the next day glued to my work laptop with my personal laptop streaming local news as the protests continued. I witnessed live as our brand was notably apart of the damage. I wrote an email to our CEO and CMO demanding we shut down operations for all of LA.

LA was our home market and our birth place. Shutting it down was a big statement. Moments after submitting the request, I was spreading the word and executing a massive city-wide shut down from my dining room table.

I needed a change, desperately.

How do I get out of this small apartment? My main street is boarded up in fear of damaging protests spreading. The Citizen app on my phone was sending daily alerts creating more fear of happenings within mere miles of me. “Aggravated man walking the alley with a machete.”

Luckily, my company was one of the few that actually announced a time frame for our new work from home policy. We had 6 months guaranteed.

I saw an out and I went for it.

It felt like the only option to truly ignite change. I thought it’d be a little escape to kickstart change and return refreshed.

What I didn’t realize was that my one-way ticket was a direct line to an entirely new life for myself.

With that one decision, that one step, nothing would be the same again.

I can still visualize the moment I rolled my one suitcase out the door of my apartment saying bye to my roommates laughing at the unknown return date.

This apartment that housed me from my first ad agency job up until this moment unknowingly came to a close the moment I stepped out with that suitcase.

I never stepped inside again.

An ode to the infamous apartment and all the stories that played out here.

With a 1 in my Human Design profile, I love to investigate and learn. Here’s what I’m most intrigued by lately.

• Our presidential candidates are going through massive astrological moments in their charts and we’re seeing eerily reflective events play out in real time. Can we predict world happenings with astrology? Can I better understand my life happenings by monitoring big transits in my chart? Chani shares a bit more about current happenings in detail here.

• I’m currently sick for the 2nd time in 2 weeks. I haven’t been sick for years. Big decisions are ahead of me. I see a new path unfolding for me. Is this my body preparing for a massive change? What needs to be released so I can receive this next level? In the meantime, I’m in bed reading the final pages of Iron Flame awaiting the next book’s release in January ‘25.

My social media life is on pause right now as I step in and out of it constantly. I look forward to sharing my updates more personally and intentionally here.