2024: Challenge and Renewal
The first time I went to Japan was in college for a three week study abroad. The first week was spent in Tokyo, and the second we stayed with host families. I got paired with the Okada family. They were a very unusual family in that, typically, Japanese parents will have one or maybe two kids, but the Okada family had at least 7 grown children and Host Mom, as I fondly referred to her. The youngest was 16 and the oldest was maybe early to mid 30’s.
On the second day, I came down for dinner and there were two new brothers sitting there dining with my host sister and I. One was Tomo and the other, I could never remember his name so I just called him Jim (haha, my host brother’s loved the American names I gave them). He was probably in his late 20’s or early 30’s and enthusiastically goofy. We chatted in basic English and Japanese with my host sister, Taeko, translating every now and then. After dinner, Tomo decided we were all going to the convenience store to get snacks, so Taeko went up and changed out of her school uniform, and the 4 of us piled in Tomo’s van and went to 7/11.
I stopped at the candy aisle first and grabbed a few things, and then met everyone at the drink coolers. Tomo was pointing out drinks to me, and finally landed on a small, maybe 8-12oz bottle of some drink with cherries on the front. I wasn’t sure if it was supposed to be a soda or something else, but he picked it up and tried to shove it in my hand. I probably made an “I’m not so sure about that” face and then he said, “Rachell Challenge!!” He was so adamant and excited about me trying this drink, so I added it to the basket. Challenge accepted. By the way, the drink was terrible. It was like, if you took cough syrup and added carbonation, haha.
Tomo declared everything after that was a Rachell Challenge. Getting to the college in the morning and navigating the campus was a Rachell Challenge, eating beef tongue at the yakiniku place was a Rachell Challenge, even learning new drinking games on my last night with my host brothers was a Rachell Challenge. So many challenges, haha.
Before I left, Taeko handed me a photo album where the family had taken pictures of themselves and written short letters to me. Tomo ended his with “Always Challenge!” I remember this when I’m doing something new, or trying something new, especially when it’s hard or I don’t want to do it but have to.
What do I want?
At 36, I’m no closer to figuring out the answer to this question. I don’t know what I want to be anymore than when I was 9 years old. I thought as I got older, answering this question would get easier, but it never does.
I’m not good at knowing or even being able to suss out what I want, but I am good at figuring out what I don’t want. I used to think I was bad at finishing or following through with things. Books, movies, art work, yoga, craft projects, but now I realize, it’s not that I’m bad at following through, I’m just really good at quitting things that aren’t for me. Being good at quitting is an underrated skill. Most of my life feels like dozens of small experiments where I try out a lifestyle or career or hobby only to realize that it doesn’t work for me, quit, and wonder onto the next thing.
2024 is another new experiment, a big “Rachell Challenge.” I’m quitting my engineering job, my only source of income and health insurance, and moving from Lexington, KY to Portland, Oregon. I’ve been planning for this since 2018, and it still feels strange and terrifying at times.
I’m not sure I can adequately explain all the reasons for making this decision, but a lot of it has to do with the toll my health has taken from working a 24/7 manufacturing job for the past 13 years. Since 2015 I’ve had a stomach ulcer, severe mono, chronic fatigue syndrome, severe clinical depression which required medication, severe mono again, had to have a tonsillectomy, chronic fatigue syndrome again, reoccurring infections in my nails, and developed numerous allergies and sensitivities to gluten, medications, and health and beauty products I’ve used for years (soaps, lotions, makeups…). That list doesn’t even include the numerous symptoms I face nearly everyday which, some doctors have told me, point to a possible autoimmune disease. It’s a lot. It’s been a lot.
Stress has become like a poison to my body and health. As soon as I start to get stressed, I start developing symptoms which worsen until I stop everything and basically stay in bed for a week or more. I don’t know if anyone has ever worked a 24/7 manufacturing job, but it’s nothing but stress. Constant scope creep, constant problems, standing for 12 hours on concrete in a noisy, hot environment, constant bickering, constant meetings, sometimes you don’t have time to even eat or sit down.
I’ve made a lot of changes to my life style over the years to help reduce the stress. I’ve radically changed my diet, I switched to all vegan health and beauty products, I moved to a different state to reduce the stress of constant travel, and still, every 6 months I get so sick I have to use half of my vacation to lay in bed and recover only to get stressed and sick again and have to repeat 6 months later.
Chronic illness has taught me something important: your body knows when you’ve had enough. It knows and it will tell you, and if you go on ignoring it then your body will find a way to force you to stop. I believe all of the illnesses I’ve experienced in the past 8 years have been related to my job in one way or another, and I’ve paid a price for staying at this job for as long as I have. There’s this saying the minimalist community uses that I think applies here, “everything costs something, there’s no such thing as free.”
In the past 3 years, I had 3 doctors independently tell me that my health will never get better until I quit my job. I’ve decided to finally take their advice and put my physical and emotional health first this year. The decision has been simple, I value my health over my job, but that doesn’t mean quitting has been easy. It’s taken me 6 months to just get used to the idea. Three of those were spent in a panic, suppressing the urge to call up HR every 8 hours and see if I can do takesies backsies on my resignation.
I keep thinking about that question, what do I want? And, yeah, I still don’t know what I want, but I know I don’t want to be sick anymore, and I also don’t want to be an engineer.
That being said, I’ve set myself up pretty well for taking a year off by paying off all of my debt and saving a years worth of salary. Last year, I spent a good amount of time working on my art business, doing in-person markets and events, and I think I’ll continue to work on pursuing art this year and trying to figure out how to make money with art. That’s actually one of the reasons I picked Portland, Oregon. There’s a large art community there and a lot of opportunities for in-person events and workshops. So, even with the anxiety and slight terror I feel at quitting my job, there’s also some excitement looking ahead to 2024.
Last week I was in Portland, apartment hunting, and ended up renting a basement apartment from a retired couple. She’s an artist and he used to be an engineer who went to Cornell. It’s kind of perfect for me, and I’ll be moving in on Feb 11.
How bad do I want it?
I’ve heard this saying before somewhere, “The life you want will cost you the life you have.” It turns out, moving across the country is really expensive. Who would have thought? I barely have a studio apartment worth of furniture and stuff, and the moving company I called quoted me $21,000. No, that’s not a typo. All the stuff I own doesn’t even add up to $3,000. The cheapest way to move I could find was to rent a POD, but even that was nearly $5,000. I realized pretty quickly that in order to get the life I want in Portland, I’ll have to throw out, donate, and give away over 90% of my life here in Kentucky. I’m only going to take what I can fit into my tiny Hyundai Veloster.
I thought donating, giving away, and throwing out most of my stuff was going to be a lot easier than it has been. With two weeks to go, I’m still curating the ~14 boxes I can fit into my car and I still have several car loads I need to take to Goodwill. It’s really crazy how much stuff you accumulate in a 2 year span. I used to say I was a minimalist, but I’m not so sure anymore. I may not own a couch but I’ve somehow managed to collect 7 moving boxes worth of art supplies. Yup, half the space in my car will be only art stuff. I have to fit the kitchen, bathroom, closet, and bedroom into the other 7 boxes. It’s just one more Rachell Challenge to work out. Every single item in my apartment I have to look at and decide do I want this thing or do I want to move to Portland and make art? Do I want this tv or do I want to move to Portland and make art? Do I want to own this PlayStation or do you want to live a purposeful life?
Okay, so I kept the PlayStation and I threw away my college diploma instead. Priorities.
I’ve gotten past the hard parts I think. I made the decision, I found an apartment, and now I’m just working on the logistics and details. I don’t know what this year is going to look like for me, but I’m going to have faith that things will work out and there will be something, an opportunity or a direction, on the other side of it.
As of today, I have 14 days left on my lease and 8 work days left of being an engineer.
Every time I tell someone or they find out I’m quitting my job, inevitably one of the first things out of their mouth is some version of “So, what are you going to do?” They’re expecting an occupation to come flying out of my mouth, but I no longer want to be an occupation. My self worth and identity haven’t been tied up in my job for a long time now. I want to be healthy, content, rested, kinder, so, instead of answering that question with an occupation I simply say “I’m going to rest.” And, so, that’s my plan for 2024, renewal and challenge. Always challenge!