freelance life milestones

Today, I was updating some stuff in my portfolio over at Contently and realized that the number of entries I had had recently crested over 1,000, which was crazy to me, since it seems only a moment ago it was the summer of 2021 and I was in the final throes of thinking of throwing in the towel at the library and deeply unhappy with what I saw continuing to happen there. To have somehow in three years not only left that job far behind, but amassed quite a large portfolio of writing for actual money still astounds me when I really think about it. 

That was the summer things were slowly starting to get back to normal after covid, which meant more ILL traffic, more library traffic in general. More expectations in programming and exhibits, which had mostly been mostly online during the pandemic. We had gone into covid times with a short staffing situation of 2 people in a department that was once 6 or 7, and while one of the positions had been restored post-lockdowns, the important one that I was filling in for since 2018 had not. This meant, in addition to my actual job and the things we did just out interest and fun, had to be balanced with continual, more dragging kinds of work I thought would be temporary at the start, but as the years stretched on, it was most definitely not. Amid more obligations, my supervisors did their best with the provost office to try to secure a raise, not just for me, but for everyone in the department doing double and triple duty, but no go.  With half the staff still offsite and gross inequities in workflows and pay, I had been determined to stick it out, but by fall, just couldn't. 

It seemed things would not be changing anytime soon, so when I had any way of making a living elsewhere (thank god for online learning and the humanities lessons I took on) I peaced out and said my goodbyes. .Last week, news came through that they had just laid off several staff members (some more useful than others) and around 70 other people in the college, which is apparently in a nose dive of debt and dwindling enrollment. Talking to someone still there, it occurred to me that had I stayed, while my job would probably have been safe since we keep the library, ya know, OPEN, it would still be all the same bullshit. 

Not that it was all roses, and was actually very scary in the beginning. There was also a lot of work to gain some footing and stability and figure out what worked and did not work as a freelancer. Even now, sometimes deadlines and word count expectations collide and it gets a little harrowing with very long days (though admittedly things are much less harrowing in your comfy clothes with no commute.) I have done some really cool and interesting things as well, and written about all manner of things. Still, hands down it may have been on one of the best choices I have ever made. 

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