I want to begin by clarifying that my rut has been so deep and suffocating that it would more accurately be deemed a mote. For the past year I’ve been digging in circles, creating a little trench around myself, filling it with water and then was somehow surprised that I was trapped on my own desolate island.

If I had to trace back its origins, I think it started with my introverted self being perfectly content with the federally mandated alone time in 2020 (I acknowledge my place of privilege in saying this, but it was my experience nonetheless). I’ve been embarrassed to admit that I was oddly comforted by the common bond of all of our disrupted lives.

Having graduated in winter 2019, I didn’t worry about my undetermined professional life because I knew that covid caught everyone else in the world by just as much surprise as it did me. When I resorted to working my once-part-time barista gig full-time for much longer than I ever intended, I wasn’t as self-critical because most of my friends were in the same position of enduring unsatisfactory jobs to pay their bills.

Then something shifted when vaccines became available a year later: my fear of needles collided with my fear of change. Things were inching ever so slowly back to our pre-pandemic normalcy and I anxiously insisted on standing still. With my left arm still sore, I felt abandoned when my friends quit their distasteful jobs during the Great Resignation because I felt like I couldn’t. I felt panic rather than excitement being “allowed” to proceed with my goals and dreams now that I had a vaccination card.

I quickly slipped into a coma of apathy, thinking that I would never be paid for my writing–or at the very least being paid more than $15 an hour– and that I was only worth 8 hours of daily service industry labor. Burn out and hopelessness controlled my thoughts and actions for months, when finally the tears of restlessness began falling. Miraculously, a series of lights flickered on and I could see my way out of the trench I’d dug, like how I somehow manage to notice a semblance of moonlight leading to the bathroom at 3:00 in the morning.

I by no means premeditated this escape plan – God knows I was not remotely in the right frame of mind – but I wanted to document how exactly it happened for future reference when I inevitably find myself in this position again:

Finally admitted to not being okay

After some long months, I confessed to close friends and family just how unhappy I really was. Holding it all together just wasn’t cutting it anymore, and I started crying in more places than just my bedroom.

Visited my family

I was never one to cry to my mommy, but this time there was no one else I could think of to ask for help. I left my laptop at home in DC, took an eight hour Amtrak to Pittsburgh and spent my 25th birthday with my parents. It was a perfect balance of career-related conversation, reminiscing and trying new things (like taking my mom out for pad thai). There is something comforting about being in the house I grew up in, especially in an intense period of self-doubt.

Got a $95 haircut

When my inner self is miserable my outer self shows, and since college I’d only ever gotten one haircut a year and this was the perfect time to indulge. I felt happier knowing that my curls were happy again, even if my bank account was not.

(Temporarily) Deleted Instagram

I know myself well enough to realize that I am far too susceptible to comparison to enjoy social media for long periods of time, and seeing people I barely knew getting married, landing well-paying jobs, being published or moving to NYC made me feel worse and worse about myself.

After I made an emo Instagram post and felt encouraged by the empathetic comments, I hid the app from my home screen and whenever I felt the itch to scroll, I started looking at NYTimes Cooking recipes instead.

Started flossing

I have no other explanation other than basic hygiene became more and more important. Dental health is mental health, I guess.

Reached out to professional contacts

The biggest cause of my rut was feeling that I could never advance in the professional career I’d always wanted. Being ghosted from most of the jobs I’d applied to left me deflated and defeated, then suddenly I shifted my focus to the contacts I’d already had, instead of discouraging myself further in trying to look for new ones.

I reached out to a magazine editor I’d connected with a few months prior and asked if I could start covering live music again–something I hadn’t done since college but sincerely missed. She excitedly responded with a concert on the calendar and it’s become my goal to land a handful of clips with my byline this year.

Reexamined my daily routines

My biggest excuse for not progressing professionally has been that I didn’t have the time to be writing, job searching or sending in applications. Working from 6 am to 2 pm shifts to pay my rent consumed most of my daily energy, leaving me to think that I “deserved” rest for the remainder of every day.

I started breaking up my todo lists into more manageable portions, telling myself that after an hour post-work nap or 30-minute lunch and Hulu break, I would peruse LinkedIn for 30 minutes or write blog content for 45 minutes. The trick was that I set the bar low enough that I would end up working on each task for a little longer than I originally set out to, and by the end of each week I checked off more than I had in months.

Feature photo by Ivana Cajina on Unsplash