Never Too Late
I have not been living very long, but in the years I’ve been alive, I have learned that time waits for no one.
As many others, when asked “what I wanted to be when I grew up”, I would give a list of things. My ideal future was always a combination of Artist and Advocate. I knew I wanted to help people, and I knew I wanted to create things. As I grew, I learned that the world isn’t as direct as I’d hoped. For some people it is. But for people like me, who have never been alone with themselves long enough to really think about what kind of future they wanted, life has been difficult.
When my dreams of being an artist were shot down at an early age, I started to wander through life hoping that one day, I’d be happy with it. I was an average student in grade school. There was no one subject I excelled in over the other. I didn’t foster the creativity in me as much as I should have. I did have a period of time where my only comfort came from poetry, but that was also short lived. Once when we were moving, all of my journals and notebooks disappeared. All 14 of them. There were poems, stories, and sketches in those notebooks. I was so discouraged that I never wrote anything else until I got to college.
When I got to college, I changed my major 3 times, and once I graduated, I STILL didn’t know what I wanted to do. I didn’t have any job offers and I was denied entrance to my graduate school of choice. I ended up at Strayer University, working on my MBA. The only problem with working on my MBA, was that everyone else around me wanted it more than I did. Throughout my MBA journey, I ran through a slew of jobs trying to get a decent car and “career”. I worked at the YMCA as an afterschool counselor, the YMCA Sales and Service team, Brookstone Schools Summer camp, Barnes and Noble, The Limited, Art Space Studio, Crazy 8, Gymboree, The Little Gym, and DTLR.
Two degrees and $115,000 worth of college debt later, I found myself at Liberty Mutual Insurance.
I hate(d) it. I hate(d) being in a cubicle. I hate(d) 9-5 traffic. I gained weight. Fifty pounds to be exact. My anxiety had spiked to levels I had never seen before. I was internally rotting.
Despite my crumbling mental status and average pay, I still work for Liberty Mutual. I have switched roles 3 times. My previous roles demanded a lot from me. I was on a fixed schedule, I had 45 minutes to eat lunch exactly, I had metrics to keep up with, I was not allowed to miss any calls, I had to respond to emails and voicemail's within one business day, and taking a vacation meant that you spent your vacation worrying about work.
My current role however, grants me a lot more freedom. I can choose my own schedule, take an hour lunch or longer, and my actual work load has decreased by at least 70%. Ideally I should be grateful for this new role, but unfortunately, every time my phone lights up, my heart rate still doubles. I’ve been with this company for three years. Mainly because rent is ridiculously expensive in Charlotte, I have a car note, and this is the first time I’ve had health benefits since my dad kicked me out the nest.
I can’t say that my entire time with Liberty has been terrible. I met some amazing people who I have denounced the term co-workers, and I now call them friends. And being in this cube made me realize something that I had ignored for almost 20 years. I realized that I am still that same little girl who wants to be an artist and an advocate.
So, with all that being said, I have finally comes to terms with the person I want to be. I am an artist. I am an advocate. It took some time, and some debt, but I have an unsettling peace about everything. It’s never too late to redirect yourself.
I’m going to hold on to this “corporate” job so that I can fund my dream job. Hopefully that means only 2-3 more years of this, because I don’t know how much longer I can listen to people talk about sports and dogs while ignoring the worlds problems.
-Ashley Butler
