🎙️ 6 Months Out: An Interview With Myself

Six months ago, I made the kind of decision that looks bold on the outside but feels terrifying on the inside. I stepped away from the promise of stability and into the absence of guarantees. I walked away from the lovable predictability of the corporate world and instead ran head first towards uncertainty.

This wasn’t a career break. It was a reclamation. Of confidence. Of agency. Of joy.

I didn’t have a perfect plan. I didn’t even have language for what I was chasing. I just knew that something essential had gone missing — my energy, my self-trust, my sense of possibility. And the only way to find it again was to stop performing, stop producing, and start paying closer attention.

This post marks six months into that journey. A half-year of unlearning, rebuilding, walking, wondering, and slowly remembering who I am when no one else is in the room.

So, in the spirit of Second Flight and its promise to document growth in real time, I’m checking in with a little self-interview from the field.

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Q1: What was I most afraid of when I left my job? That I'd feel like it was all for nothing. That, after so many years of giving, of caring, of sacrificing, I'd walk out the doors on my last day and all that work, all that time, would just be forgotten. Practically speaking, I know the notion that "everyone is replaceable" has major truth to it, but emotionally speaking, a part of me hoped to be the exception. In the end, it was humbling to be reminded how transactional the relationship between an employee and their employer really is. So while this fear was realized, it ended up being not so scary. I just had to reframe it all. It wasn't "all for nothing", it was, in fact, all for something...but that something was by no means, everything.

Q2: What’s surprised me the most since then? How creative I've felt. For a lot of reasons over these last few years, I wasn't able to access much of my creative energy. I didn't expect to thrive in a lack of structure, but I think that sudden widening of time and space let my creative juices leak out a bit. I've written more, read more, and created more than I've managed to in years.

Q3: What habits have anchored me the most? Walking every day. Getting re-acquainted with my Pilates practice. Logging each day's movement as a means of motivation. Reading voraciously. Listening to music really loudly when no one else is home. Making my bed right away each morning. It really is the small things...

Q4: Have I found my voice again? No, not yet. But I can feel it rising. I am still spending too much time worrying about how my voice will be received and not enough time just talking.

Q5: What’s one thing I’ve done that 6-months-ago me wouldn’t have? Spoken publicly about my own confidence dips and growth. I've always been an empathetic and vulnerable leader and colleague, but I was weary of more general public perception so I veered on the side of caution when it came to telling my own stories on any social platforms. But since I have, I feel a tremendous sense of relief. And purpose, even? So many people have read my posts and reached out to me privately to tell me how they're struggling with similar topics - and it just seems like there isn't an adequate outlet for these types of conversations in the modern corporate sphere, so I am glad to be catalyzing some people to think about these things more intentionally.

Q6: What does confidence look like today? Slow. Steady. Maybe the best way to describe the type of confidence I am embodying lately is through a pretty abstract, niche metaphor: I feel like a Greek or German road/construction project (after all - they're not so different countries, which will enrage my German friends to hear no doubt). To onlookers, day to day, it doesn't look like much is happening, and it may even cause some inconvenience, but eventually, it will look different and maybe even, better. If you were to ask the foreman when it will be finished, they'll simply shout at you with his/her chest with a "when it's done!" That's how I'd describe my current state of confidence: slightly defensive, but empowered, because I'm a literal work in progress.

Q7: What’s still hard? Trusting that slow seasons are still building seasons. Trusting the healing process, even though the pay offs come slow, if at all. Surrendering to grief on the days I am gripped by the memory of my Mom -- it's much easier to resist it and pretend its not there. In the absence of less tangible work goals and outcomes, I also sometimes crave the instant gratification of feedback (good or bad), and the on-demand curation of information, gossip, insights. Sometimes I feel like I live in a secluded cave somewhere in Siberia, in comparison to the amount of inputs I used to have on any given day. Often, I have impatience spells and just want to be in a different phase or season of life, but then I look around at all my blessings and I tell myself to STFU and slow the hell down. I have days plagued with doubt - that I did the right thing, that I am on the right path now. Most of all, I miss the people - well, I miss my people - the ones I left behind, the colleagues turned BFFs.

Q8: What’s next? More of everything that serves me and less of everything that doesn't. Like more truth-telling and less apologizing. More writing & creating and less over-thinking end results. More walking & pilates and less worrying about their superficial effects on my body and health. More networking & reconnecting with old friends and less retreating into myself.

So, no — six months in, I don’t have it all figured out. I’m not “back to myself.” I’m somewhere new. And while I don’t know exactly where this road leads, I finally mostly trust the person doing the walking. Plus, I have myself, my voice, and the audacity to keep going. And for now, that’s more than enough.

Thanks for being part of this messy, meaningful middle with me. I’ll keep checking in from the field — one vulnerable step at a time.