i must be doing something right

f*ck a career, i'm trynna frolic babe: a reflection on careers, resignations, and friction

welcome moon gazer, flower admirer, skinny dipper, public crier, tree hugger, shower singer, notes app poetry writer, early riser, coffee drinker, tea sipper, living room dancer, sunset lover, and everyone in between. this is sacred somethings, musings on sensitivity, embodiment, grief, and the sacred in every day.

i’m glad you’re here.

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Hi sweet substackers <3

It’s been a while. I hope these words meet you in a moment of tenderness. I hope summer’s warmth beckons you closer. I hope you see god in the flowers, in a smile exchanged with a stranger, in your own reflection.

a tiny bouquet from my neighborhood’s blooms, picked for you <3

i quit my job. again.

This decision has resulted in a season of deep reflection on my life, my values, my dreams, what it means to live in alignment, whose opinions matter to me, what place joy has in my daily life, what role passion plays in my work, what rest entails, what I owe to myself and my community…I could keep going! That is indeed the gift of unemployment—time to reflect.

This was my third resignation since September of 2023, when I left the position that a previous version of myself planned to work until retirement. I held the position a little over two years but it felt like much longer. Though I loved witnessing and supporting people through their darkest days, my nervous system was completely fried. I wouldn’t be surprised if at the end of my time on this earth, the receipts show that those night shifts in the intensive care unit, in a strained and profit-focused healthcare system shaved years off my life.

I thank Spirit for the bold voices of loved ones in my life that softened me, even through the thick wall of my stubbornness and pride, by calling attention to the ways I had become disconnected from that which matters most in this life. Like playing in the sun. Leisure. Laughter and friendship and nourishing food. A reasonable sleep schedule. Boredom that makes way for creativity. I had forfeited it all for what my dear friend Amara calls “the rat race”. As I came to this realization and began integrating my body’s needs into my workflow, I met incredible amounts of resistance from my employers. (In fact, this video about listening to my body’s cues got me written up by HR). I knew I had to get out. Something in me had shifted, and I could no longer sacrifice my body, my dreams, or my livelihood for the machine of the medical industrial complex.

In October, I started working a role in a new specialty. I didn’t have much interest in the work itself, but my coworkers were kind and the hours let me share meals and a sleep schedule with my loved ones again. It paid the bills and gifted me mundanity. Still, I couldn’t shake the voice in my spirit saying, there’s more to this life than clocking in and paying the bills.

My brows frequently furrowed as I thought about all I had been taught about careers and work ethics and being a “good employee”. By this point, I was much more concerned with giving genuine, quality care to my patients, my loved ones, and myself than I was with impressing hospital execs. So, naturally, and much to my manager’s dismay, when my dog needed emergency surgery, I called out of my shift to care for her. When I had a panic attack on shift in response to a comment made by a coworker (that was completely inappropriate for the workplace and bordering on harassment, I might add), I requested to leave my shift early and I called out the next day to recover emotionally. After so many years repressing my body’s voice when she spoke to me, I felt emboldened to listen, to slow down, to move at her pace. I trusted my body.

a very tender moment between me and my body before doing a poetry reading with a group led by the wonderful, mai c doan.

It is unsurprising that prioritizing my body and spirit over my job led to being reprimanded (again lol). By this time, however, I had been offered a position working in a specialty I was excited about (hospice!) I resigned in April after my six month stint in colonoscopy so I could venture into a new specialty. The universe had seemingly opened all the right doors. I felt such relief leaving my old job, and a new aliveness at the prospect of doing work that aligned with my passion for end of life care. I confidently took the leap.

Sometimes, I’m learning, the leap is where the growth happens. Sometimes leaping is less about where we’ll land and more about about exercising the muscles of self-trust that move our feet off the cliffs of wondering toward the skies of possibility. Sometimes, we’ll soar through those skies. Sometimes we’ll plummet.

Plummeting is where I found myself this time. I knew almost immediately that the position was not for me. In just four weeks, I observed terrible communication, unclear expectations, subpar care for a vulnerable population, and an absurd emphasis on you guessed it, profit. I felt like my spirit was being put through a laminator; I was plastic-coated and disconnected from the heart of end of life care. Someone else might have been able to put their head down and go through the motions. But my deeply sensing, deeply caring spirit could not do it, at least not without succumbing to numbness or compromising my ethics. End of life care is so dear to me. The hours I have spent sitting at the threshold of this life and witnessing folks as they cross that threshold have been some of the most sacred of my life. And I simply refuse to cheapen something so abundantly rich with purpose and beauty and tenderness and holiness.

With my convictions in one hand and uncertainty in the other, I resigned for a third time in less than a year. I now find myself less soaring and more drifting on the winds of such a decision.

a brief note on privilege:

I find it important to name at this time that it is a privilege to resign from a job by choice. In the United States, 11.5% of the population lives in poverty, which disproportionately affects Black and brown folks. It would be a disservice not to name that my privileged socioeconomic background as a white woman from a middle-class family is a part of this conversation. I recognize and honor that while I got to take the risk of unemployment, many folks do not have that option. I dream of a world where all people are nourished, where all people have networks of care that allow them not only survival but flourishing.

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neighborhood blooms

on friction:

After each of my three recent resignations, there have been moments imbued with doubt. Is it me that’s the problem? Am I too sensitive like they say? Are my expectations too high? Am i being unreasonable? Am I supposed to be unbothered by these patterns that leave me feeling like a machine and not a person? In these moments, I have found it soothing to remind myself that if I am coming up against friction in a system I don’t believe in, I must be doing something right. A smile has gently glided across my face as I type that. Once more for good measure. If I am coming up against friction in a system I don’t believe in, I must be doing something right.

I’m letting this realization be my guide in this new chapter. I’m letting the simultaneous truths of my love for nursing and my contempt for the American healthcare machine sit together in conflict. I’m loosening the white-knuckled grasp I once had on a career. I’m giving myself grace to flail a little in the uncertainty. This is the first time in my adult life that I’m not sure what’s next for me, and there’s something deeply liberating in that feeling. I feel a new openness to the endless array of possibilities that await me. A softness where there was once was rigidity.

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gifts from unemployment:

Time with summer’s blooms. Foxglove swaying on the street corner. The scent of roses drifting on the evening breeze. California poppies’ vibrant hub for the neighborhood bumblebees. Slow mornings. Morning coffee ritual. Staying in my pajamas til noon. Presence. Celebration. Intention. Laughter. Contemplation. Playfulness. Tears. Tenderness.

Has anyone listened to Raveena’s new album, Where Butterflies Go in the Rain? It has been such a gift to me in this season. I’ve cried through it several times now. I feel so grateful for illuminating art like hers. Let me know your favorite songs in the comments.

I leave you with this poem I wrote about a week after resigning.

I Only Fear the Jump

Life sometimes 
no, often
feels like standing at cliff’s edge
deep waters glistening 
at the shore of my mind’s conception of 
“should”

I’ve never regretted jumping. 
never looked back cliff side 
once softened
by water’s silky embrace

I turn my belly to the sun 
and surrender

I do not fear deep waters.

As always, thank you for your presence,

<3 kenzi

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If you feel led to support me financially during this season of unemployment, you can buy me a coffee or a book here <3 I dream of a world beyond capitalism where finances do not rule our lives, but in the meantime, a girl has bills to pay. While I never expect financial support from my readers, I do deeply appreciate community support and generosity. From the bottom of my softie heart, thank you!