NOT (NOT) AN ENEMY
hi friend,
Unemployment is not something you'd normally brag about, but for me, it has been a source of pride.
It's not that I don't like working. I'm a textbook recovering workaholic.
But being ‘employable’ felt like some sort of code word normies use to say that they are easily indoctrinated, and lack the personality required to exercise their free will.
#GIRLBOSS
I had been freelancing as a photographer in NYC since I was 18 years old, so when I got rejected from taking classes at the Stern Business School because I was "not qualified" as a Photo and Imaging Major getting a BFA at NYU, I was on a personal mission to prove them wrong.
So after quitting my first and only job at a corporate startup for having ethics, I started my first business at 23 in 2014 at the height of the #GIRLBOSS era, with no business education. And you couldn't tell me shit.
I needed not nobody, not no how, and I was inclined to keep it that way.
The joke is on me, though, because nothing is more needy than needing to prove you're not needy.
I NEED YOU TO KNOW I DON'T NEED YOU
I had opened not one, but two brick-and-mortar photography studios in New York City under the illusion I had found independence when, in reality, I was running off pure pick-me-girl energy all while playing struggle olympics to assimilate to the woke movement of the 2010s.
My life seemed successful, but it was a miserable existence dressed up in the fancy language of a social enterprise that gave upward economic mobility for the LGBTQIA and BIPOC communities of up-and-coming artists in NYC. #virtuesignalling
Don't get me wrong, there was a lot of good that came out of that business.
Sometimes I look fondly back on the Instagram account that I'm now locked out of, reminiscing on some of the unparalleled talent that graced those spaces.
But the truth is that I was addicted to being a victim, using other people's problems to avoid my own, and claiming that I had no time to make the art I said I was going to make when I decided to become a “real” artist — like I didn't have a bountiful community willing to help me.
You would think that when Holyrad Studio went up in flames, I would have learned to take some responsibility – but I was too busy feeling bad for myself, having been burned by all of my ‘friends’ who had decided to make me the villain.
And rightfully so, I'm a Capricorn sun and Libra rising.
The crash-outs I was having were a particular brand of scorched earth that would seem irrational to anyone who had not known me before the villain arc, but now it's not hard for me to admit that I had become a very mean and unhappy person.
To be fair, I grew up in a house built on a very specific script: “Guess I’m a bad mother, then.” It trained me to stand outside my own boundaries, unable to reach my own needs.
The family system looked healthy, even enviable — a white picket fence from the street. But that fence wasn’t safety; it was the cage itself. And inside it, I never learned the obvious:
When something crosses your boundaries, you are allowed to leave 🤯.
RADICAL RESPONSIBILITY
Radical responsibility looked like me recognizing that I did not want the life I had anymore, and instead of learning how to set boundaries and break up with my boyfriend of 8 years, I clung on for dear life to an identity that no longer served me.
See, working for yourself only works if you actually work for yourself.
If you're freelancing and saying yes to clients you don't want and money that barely covers the expenses of the mental health support required to survive those clients, then you're running up an emotional debt that will catch up to you, and if you're lucky, it will happen quickly.
Because, let's be honest, nobody hates the consistent paycheck and dental care from a corporate 9-to-5.
But if you’re working forty hours a week under the banner of being a strong, independent woman — in a house where the kids resent you, where your husband sleeps on the couch “because he snores,” where your amphetamine habit masquerades as ADHD medication just to survive the day — then that steady paycheck isn’t freedom at all.
It’s captivity, shrink-wrapped and delivered in Amazon boxes.
So when I got the call from my dream client to ask me to become her Operations Manager after having to fire her entire team, I was surprised at how quickly I said yes.
Yet after two weeks working for someone who gives me autonomy, pays me well, trusts my expertise, and doesn't force a non-compete clause on some contract that signs my life away, I realized something really beautiful.
I DON’T NEED TO BE NEEDED
I WANT TO BE WANTED
So while, yes, I can go to the depths of the bottom of rock bottom to start from zero, and I can get high as a kite riding the sweet sweet high of workaholism – a consistent paycheck with regular hours has created more freedom for me than I ever thought possible.
But I would never have known that without all of the loss it took to get here, and I certainly would not have been qualified for this job either.
So if you're reading this and it's all crashing and burning around you, what do you think God coming in and answering your prayers was going to look like, babe?
Your new life is going to cost you your old one, and it might be hidden in plain sight in the idea you refuse to consider as an option.
This and more on this week's episode of the Not Not Podcast. Something I have more time and money to dedicate than I ever had before.
I just didn't think it would take having a job to get there.
Never go with a hippie to a second location, ✌️Daryl
This week's episode is dedicated to my Aunty Debbie Hannan, who said I was not allowed to share my story. Your “support” made this possible.
