There’s a version of this plan that works very neatly on paper.
I teach more, open up my schedule, take on more students, and eventually build something steady enough to support myself.
The problem is that all of that requires time, and right now most of mine already belongs to the job I’m trying to move away from.
Nursing still pays me far more than teaching does. It covers my expenses and gives me the financial stability I’m not willing to gamble away, especially with the cost of living where I am. Walking away from it before I have something solid underneath me would be reckless.
Unfortunately, it is also the job that leaves me with the least energy to build anything else.
That is the part I keep running into.
To make teaching financially viable, I need more students. To take on more students, I need more availability. More availability means either working less at the hospital or cutting further into sleep and recovery, neither of which is especially sustainable.
So the job that supports me now also slows down the work that could support me later.
I understand the logic of it. I just don’t particularly enjoy living inside it.
Sometimes I catch myself thinking that if I could find another two hours somewhere, or somehow become slightly more efficient, I could finally get some momentum. But there are only so many hours in a day, and apparently none of them have been hiding under the couch waiting for me to discover them.
For now, I work with whatever is left.
A few classes here. An extra slot there. Some lesson planning squeezed between shifts. Progress happens, but slowly enough that it is difficult to recognize while I’m inside it.
Lately, it barely feels like movement at all.
I survive on microwave dinners. The most walking I’ve done recently is taking the trash out once a week. My idea of an “adventure” has become selling off things I don’t plan to take with me so the eventual move will be lighter and, ideally, a little less financially painful.
Technically, I know that counts as preparation.
Emotionally, it mostly feels like emptiness.
There’s something strange about dismantling one version of your life before the next one is ready. You can be making perfectly rational decisions and still look around afterward and wonder why everything feels so bare.
Maybe that’s where I am right now.
The math still makes sense. I need the nursing income. I need time to grow the teaching income. I don’t have enough of both to move as quickly as I want.
So the transition is slower than I would like, and considerably less inspiring than career-change stories tend to make it sound.
For now, I’m still moving. I just happen to be moving at a speed that is extremely fucking annoying.
The post The Math Doesn’t Lie: Transitioning Careers While Working Full Time appeared first on Wonderlust.