Putting on your own oxygen mask

I'm sure all of you are about to fall over at the sight of the new blog post but just stay seated for a moment and read on...yes, I'm actually updating the blog for the first time in over a month today.  I can go on and tell you all of the things that I did in the last month between work, and catering jobs and everything else that your head would probably spin and then you would understand why this girl hasn't sat down in from of a computer or I can just tell you this.  Today I submitted my resignation at my job that has become effective immediately.  This is something that I have been thinking about doing for a long time and some things changed at work and then you start to realize that you are just not happy anymore and a lot of people are seeing that and something just needs to change.  So you start to do that gut check of what actually feels right in your life anymore and as someone once told me "you and you alone need to be the one to put your own oxygen mask on because no one else is going to do it for you".  After 7+ years with the company and 3 and 1/2 years in New York of working a minimum of 12 hour days which included that lovely 3 hour commute, I'm regaining control of my life.   Part of me just thinks that I need a break from everything considering I started working full time 3 days after I graduated from college and never looked back which was 5 years ago and part of me knows that I just need a change and to move onto the next chapter in my life.  For months now I kept thinking to myself that I didn't want to do this anymore because there was very little joy or excitement that came out it.  I was no longer passionate about working so much and never having nights and weekends free and retail is a completely different animal that it used to be.  And as your life plate continues to get fuller from all of the many things that you throw onto it, you can never give any one thing that attention that it really deserves so you can either start to feel like an octopus where you try to cover everything trying to go in in every direction or you can decide what truly is important to you. 

So, I'm sure the question that is on every one's minds is "What the hell is she going to do now with her life?"  Well first off I'm actually going to celebrate the holidays like a normal person for the first time in however long that I can remember because I will no longer be so exhausted that I can barely stand up and not have to feel like I'm actually running from place to place and have my holiday joy sucked out of me from the bright lights and pleasures of retail at Christmas.   I'm going to cater and bake and do things that actually bring true joy and passion to my life and then I'll either get another job or I'll figure out at way to get a business off the ground.  I said to someone last night, "look I'm going to be more then OK.  If I have to sell cupcakes off the side of the road or work a bunch of different jobs, I will figure it out because I know that I can do this".  I'm going to reshuffle my deck of cards, figure out what kind of person I want to be and be that person.  I'm not going to be afraid to try something new because as the story goes "Noah had never built a ship before he built an Ark, but a group of professionals had built the Titanic and we all know how that turned out". I'm going to recreate myself, as my mother always reminds me that people need to do in their lives and it's just going to happen sooner rather then later and I know that this is just one of many chapters that will make up my adult life. 

I have never felt so sure and so good about a decision that I have made then I do today and it is such a beautiful, liberating feeling to have.  Friends who have left retail keep telling that the grass is so much frickin greener on the other side and I CAN NOT wait to see the bright side even though it feels like I'm there already.  This is no where near an end but only a very big beginning.