My Favorite Mistakes, PART ONE - First Crush

“If only my professional life were going as smoothly as my personal life,” I said to my husband over dinner. “If only I could find a job I like as much as I like you.”

It was just an offhand comment, or was it?

My career path has been on my mind a lot lately. Its stops and starts, the surprising turns in the road, and of course, the disappointments. Oh, the disappointments.

Most of all, I have been thinking about where I am headed. With perspective, it is easy to pinpoint what about a past job experience was good or bad, but sometimes it is more challenging to see how each job fits into the Big Picture. What lessons do I need to learn to help me on my career path moving forward?

I have been happily partnered with a man I love very much for several years, but I haven’t been able to say the same for my career partnerships in quite some time.

I find the Big Picture is much easier to see when reflecting on my dating life. I see how past relationships helped guide me to the place and person I am now. Could I look at my professional life in a similar way? Aren’t old jobs a lot like old boyfriends? And would comparisons reveal anything that could help me find a better career match in the future?

Consider the first crush. My first crush lasted through most of my adolescence. Because it was an unfulfilled infatuation, it lurked persistently in the background of my early relationships with other less “perfect” dating partners.

My crush flamed on even after learning in a very brutal way that my fantasy in no way matched reality. When I finally managed to get a date to the dance with my Romeo, he spent the whole night pursuing his crush (obviously not me) in front of all of my friends.

It is not easy for me to admit my fervor for my crush remained mostly unshaken for another three years despite the humiliation of that night. I was not able to drop my infatuation until college, long after Mr. Romeo and I parted ways. I happened to run into him unexpectedly after class one afternoon, and he asked me out. When we finally had the date I had waited all my life for, it was tedious enough to break the spell forever (Romeo who?).

I couldn’t help but see a parallel to an early job I also crushed over for quite some time (though not for several years, thank goodness). It was my first professional magazine job, and I wanted this job so much. The employer played hard to get but I refused to give up. Although it was obvious that I wanted the job more than the job wanted me, it didn’t matter. As soon as they got me, they would see why we were meant to be together.

After almost hiring me three separate times, eventually my dreams came true, and they actually did. Sort of.

I was so thrilled I said yes even though it meant a hefty pay cut to work contract, and they could only commit to me one month at a time. They promised to hire me as soon as the hiring freeze lifted, which surely would happen any day now.

Months later, they were still stringing me along. I offered to work after hours and on vacation for no extra pay to show my commitment, but the promise of long-term employment never materialized.

To make matters worse, I was working in an office about as exciting as a morgue and about as friendly as you would expect any corpse to be. None of my colleagues went to lunch together, so I ate alone most days. The office was quiet as a library during business hours. No one laughed at anyone’s jokes (even mine). Instead of seeing this environment as the unfriendly, unimaginative place it was, I found myself questioning my own talents instead.

Still, I maintained this was the Job of My Dreams…I just needed to hang on a little longer. And then the news dropped: the whole magazine was moving to another state—and almost everyone wasn’t invited. Only then did I realize the job I was in love with existed only in my mind. The reality was crap. Instead of desperately hanging onto the job for the last few months before they dumped me, I decided my contract wasn’t renewable at the end of the month.

Both crushes gave me the exhilaration of hope but were devastating when the spell broke. They taught me a hard lesson in the difference between an ideal and reality. I had imagined the relationship being one way for so long, that even when confronted with a reality that was entirely different, I still saw my fantasy as real.

And while they both gave me a glimmer of the kind of relationship I wanted and hoped to find one day, they also showed me what I didn’t want…once I woke up. I learned to distrust the rush of infatuation, but I also learned self-respect. Compromising that wasn’t an option, so I had to pick myself up and move on, a little broken but a little wiser.

Have you ever had a job crush where the reality didn’t match fantasy? How did you handle it? What did you learn?

Tune in for the next installment when I compare more ghosts of boyfriends past with equally disappointing vocational choices.

Approaching Burnout

10,000 ft up Beartooth Highway in Montana feeling on top of the world.

I have been delaying making the decision for over a month. And every time I said, “Today’s the day,” I would come up with a reason to delay.

I think that usually you don’t realize you have overcommitted yourself until it is too late. When I was laid off from a job I hated 6 months ago, my schedule opened up in wonderful ways. I could write, I could read, I could run. I could even yoga. All of the things I never seemed to have time for.

So of course, the best thing to do when you finally have time to do what you want is to completely pack your schedule until you are out of free time again.

Yes, I will run a 180-mile relay with you in the mountains.

Yes, I will ghost write your book.

Yes, I can do that rush assignment.

Yes, I will volunteer for more training.

Yes, I will be a fundraising mentor.

Yes, I will cook brunch for 30 people.

Yes, I will work every Friday and Saturday night. Who needs a weekend?

Until suddenly, YES becomes a prison of your own making. How did YES become so so wrong? Each YES gives away ownership of real estate in your own life. And then you begin to wonder why you can’t say NO.

I operate under the belief that it is very hard to find that “just right” amount of busy. Life tends to be feast or famine in many ways, and so a certain amount of imbalance is to be expected. Plus, a lot of what I’ve said yes to has been worthwhile. Life is short. Live it to the fullest, right?

In the exact moment when I say yes, I genuinely want to say yes … well, at least 8 times out of 10. And every time I confess to my husband that I signed up for another half marathon or agreed to bag lunches for kids at the food bank or took on a new case, he shakes his head. He knows what I often forget.

Not only are there only so many hours in the day, but we each have finite energy reserves. We can only make withdrawals from that internal bank so often without depositing before we reach burnout. We can schedule each day down the second but if we don’t allow ourselves time to recharge, things we once enjoyed doing just become another obligation, another box on the To Do List to check off. And that is no way to live.

To make matters worse, whenever my husband relaxes with a FIFA soccer video game or goes off to play golf, inside I think, “Gee, must be nice to have so much free time.”

How ridiculous is that when my own lack of downtime is entirely my own fault?

Last month, I began looking at the October calendar with all of its colorful dots marking future obligations, and I felt anxious. How is so much of my time already spoken for? A lot of these dots represent things I want to do—a vacation with family, a football game with friends—but taken as a whole, I felt trapped.

I knew it was time to drop something from my list. I say “something” but I knew what that something was. I wanted it to be anything but THAT something. I couldn’t deny, however, that my weekends were becoming a battlefield between family obligations and my hours at the restaurant. So after an intense, month-long war with myself, I decided to take a hiatus from my apprenticeship.

So hard to say goodbye!

I am sad. I am relieved. I am sad again. But it is only the close of one chapter. And I when I start writing the next one, I won’t try to jam a whole book into a few pages.

Saying No to Your "Dream Job"

About a month ago, I was offered a job at the restaurant where I am learning to be a chef.

On one level, this was a huge personal victory for me. Part of the reason that I decided to see if I could hack it in a professional kitchen was to prove to myself that I wasn’t just a home cook “playing chef.” The question in the back of my mind for a long time has been, Am I talented enough to make a living at this?

I wanted to test my culinary competency by actually putting myself (and my ego) on the line.

Don’t get me wrong. I know I am not a chef (yet). I know I came into the restaurant as a complete amateur.  Having a passion for food and a working knowledge of basic cooking techniques in no way prepares you adequately for the demands of a professional kitchen. And to become a chef takes years of hard work and dedication.

Before I made the jump, I asked my friend Ike how he got started in the restaurant business. His advice was simple: work really hard, be polite, be eager and be honest.

And that advice was spot-on in every way. If you lie about your culinary skills in a restaurant, it takes about 5 seconds before the gig is up. You have no other option but to walk the walk or take a hike. And you cannot be above doing any task. Everyone does their time washing dishes, cleaning up fish guts and dumping grease in the rusty barrel by the dumpster.

It is hard work. It is not glamorous work.

If you are willing to risk, willing to fail, willing to look like a complete fool, and willing to keep working when you just want to pull off your apron, tell everyone to F--- off and go home, then you can make it in a professional kitchen.

My early weeks at the restaurant highlighted everything I didn’t know about a topic I have studied as a hobby for more than a decade. To say it is a humbling experience is an understatement. But the challenge is also exhilarating. It is a steep learning curve, but certainly not an impossible one.

I have succeeded in a professional setting in ways I didn’t think were possible, and that is empowering. Perhaps my biggest disappointment with this whole experiment is that my success has less to do with my innate culinary talent (or lack thereof) and more to do with me just being stubborn and persistent.

So I was surprised when instead of feeling happy that I had been offered a position, I felt tremendous anxiety. My response confused a lot of my friends. Isn’t this what I was working towards? Isn’t this a dream come true?

The answer that began to emerge from the quiet deep of my mind is: No, this is not the right choice for me.

Do I want to work in the culinary world?  Yes.

Do I want to work in a restaurant?  Ehhhh.

Consider a few of the realities of working in a professional kitchen:

1. You lose your weekends or nights or holidays or all of the above, meaning, you lose your social life. At first you are invited to a lot of things you can’t go to. Eventually, you just will not be invited to anything any more.

2. You have family coming up for the weekend? You want to take a week vacation to France? Tough. Good luck finding someone to cover more than one shift ever.

3. You work without any breaks most of the time, including breaks to eat or use the bathroom.

4. Your back will hurt, your knees will hurt, and your hands will be covered in scars from various cuts and burns. And you will come home wired at 11 pm when everyone else is ready for bed. (Which, I now realize, is probably why most line cooks are about 10 years younger than me.)

5. Your starting wage will be not much above minimum wage, and if you finally make it to executive chef, you will likely still have servers who make more money than you do.

Of course, Chef told me from the beginning how crazy I was to want this life and exactly what I was getting myself into. So he was not the least bit surprised when I turned down the “dream job.” Though if I’m honest, it was never my dream to begin with.

The other night, Chef was telling each of his staff members what he envisioned their next step to be. For one person, a move to the grill, for another, to become a sous chef at a bigger restaurant. For me? To quit all of this restaurant business and go back to writing. When I want to cook, I can make canapés for dinner parties with my girlfriends.

I laughed and shrugged it off, because I certainly had thought about quitting all of this restaurant business, but the implications of his statement stayed with me. Have I just been Susie Homemaker “playing chef” this whole time? Should this whole experiment end with me returning to my home kitchen to lick my wounds, or at the very least, make bacon-wrapped shrimp and fiesta pinwheels for the next Dancing With the Stars premiere?

I say, no to canapés, no to Dancing With the Stars premiere parties (sorry DWTS fans), and no to giving up on a dream much larger than this small chapter.  I am a writer. I am a cook. And I am not that easy to get rid of.

How to Do What You Love (When You Don’t Feel Like It)

A couple of months ago I said goodbye to the oil and gas business in order to focus on my two loves: cooking and writing. And so far, other than the lack of cash, I am happy with that choice. Even when I am bone tired, frequently outside my comfort zone and working very hard for free, I feel satisfied.

So imagine my surprise when I found myself procrastinating heading into the restaurant Friday afternoon for another chance to live the dream.

I am so tired. Can’t I just sit here on the couch and read a book? I asked myself silently. I need to take a break. That thought quickly escalated into more existential analysis: Why am I doing this? What is my big plan? Shouldn’t I have a plan? Do I even want to do this?

These thoughts followed me out the door, on the road and into the kitchen, where I uncharacteristically showed up a full 30 minutes later than normal for my shift. Passing the chef, I pasted on a smile, set down my knives and put on an apron. No time for angst. Time to get to work.

“Miss Jessica,” he said cheerfully. “I have a special app that I want you to be in charge of tonight. I want you to make it, assemble it and come up with your own presentation and description.”

Secret ingredient: fig. One of my favorites. Stuffing: goat cheese, honey and thyme. Awesome. Packaging: prosciutto. More things should arrive prosciutto wrapped.

Feeling excited, I began my work, but as the hours passed, excitement became irritation and anxiety. In a packed and tiny kitchen, you are often in people’s way or pulled off task to meet other requests. The frequent interruptions and the pressure of creating a dish on the spot were not sitting well with my already resistant psyche.

To my horror, I actually told Chef I wasn’t given enough time to prepare and that I didn’t know what I was doing. Understandably, neither of those comments went over very well, and soon after, I presented my plate to the Chef, bracing for the worst.

The dish was not a disaster. The critique was fair, and I received a valuable lesson on how to manage space on a plate. With two small adjustments, we had an appetizer ready for service. (In fact, it sold out that evening.)

Still my sour mood persisted as we suited up, and I took my place next to Chef on the line. Despite my efforts to hide it, my lack of sunshine was peeking through. Less than an hour into the evening, he asked what was up.

“I am okay. In a bad mood tonight, but not sure why,” I said.

“Go home,” he said abruptly. “I don’t need anyone in my kitchen in a bad mood.”

This pronouncement jolted me to my senses. Suddenly, I wanted very much to be there and back peddled sufficiently to avoid banishment. And thank goodness for that moment because all of the noise in my head could not silence the truth: I want to be here.

And once I wanted to be there, the night immediately improved.

We all have those days when our best intentions meet with inertia or resistance. We hit snooze. We drag our feet. We call in sick.

Even when we do what we love, we aren’t going to love doing it every day. Some days, the running shoes stay in the closet, the Rosetta Stone lesson stays unopened and you order takeout instead of trying that new recipe.

Other days, you power through a bad run or spend a day screwing things up in a kitchen, and can only take comfort in the fact you put in the time (however disappointing) in spite of your own efforts to sabotage yourself.

The good days, the bad days and all the days in between are all part of living the dream. One day is just one day.

Maybe, like me, you sometimes forget how much you actually do love what you are doing. And if you are lucky, life will (gently) kick you in the head and remind you. Allow those “I want to be here” realizations to carry you through the days when you aren’t so sure. On a particularly underwhelming day, you may be pleasantly surprised by how content you are.

Do We Really Need Another Food Blog?

For the past two months and change, I have been staging (read: chef apprenticing without pay) at a French restaurant a few days a week. Countless friends have suggested that I blog about my experiences, and my answer is always, “Yeah, I should do that.”

Yet, here I am 24 working days and 178 hours into my professional kitchen experiment, and I haven’t written one word on my blog.

In fact, I haven’t touched this blog in ages. I have come up with a number of reasons (read: excuses) for why this is: I am too busy. I would rather spend my time on paid writing projects. I am too burned out to write for myself after writing for hire.

But the answer I keep coming back to is, Why would anyone care what I have to say?

We reached the social media oversaturation point a long time ago. Now everyone is “positioning themselves” with a social media strategy to launch their brand, their product, their book to the public so they can make it big, or at least make some money. Don’t I want to write the next Julie & Julia or at least release a cookbook?

When it comes to food blogs in particular, we have an abundance of supply and a fair amount of demand. Not only does every food magazine release its list of top food blogs I need to be following, but top food blogs make their own top food blog lists.

Oh, I think to myself, I better bookmark all of these so I can never look at them again. I have enough on my schedule every day without homework assigned by the editors of Bon Appétit.

Should I contribute to this food blog fetish? I am not sure. Is my apprenticeship boring? Not in the least. Am I learning things that might be interesting to other cooks out there? Most definitely. Perhaps most of all, am I having fun? Hell yes.

And … so what?

What do I have to add to the existing discourse of the foodiesphere when I would say there is already plenty being said? Who wants to read what I have to say?

Then I realized I am asking the wrong question. What I need to ask myself is, Do I have something I need to say? Not do I have anything to say because we all probably say far more than we need to in a given day. More like, what is that something that keeps pushing to the surface of my thoughts despite my repeated efforts to dismiss it? What do I need to say?

If I say what must be said, then that is enough. And if I am lucky, a few readers will think it was worth saying.

Why I Run: A Novice Runner's Manifesto

I am not a runner. And by that I mean, I did not fall in love with running at an early age, compete in high school track meets, graduate to marathons, or establish a lifelong pattern of daily running.

I restarted my running “habit” a little more than a year ago, though I still have had my stops and starts since. In fact, on most days I will admit that I don’t actually enjoy running all that much. I don’t deal well with discomfort—the hard pounding rattles my joints and aches my shins. For the first five or so minutes, I am acutely aware of every ache and twinge, the slight rub of my shoes on my heel or toe, the burn of my lungs or a complaining muscle.

I also find it difficult to breathe through my nose as directed because it seems to get immediately congested. And I must be chronically dehydrated despite guzzling down thermos after thermos of water, because I always feel thirsty.

Very few days are ideal running days in New Orleans. You have the uncomfortable stickiness of summer, even early in the morning or late in the evening. Or you have the suffocating humidity, the miserable rain. And of course, the bone chill when we actually have what passes for winter here.

If running is so miserable, why do I do it? Perhaps I like to punish myself, I’m an overachiever or I have lost my mind.

No—I am not out to prove myself or punish myself, and oxygen is still getting to my brain.

And yet non-running friends repeatedly ask me, “How can you do that? I hate running.” Or they warn me of its dangers or simply say, “Better you than me.”

So why do I run?

I run because there is a comfort in knowing my own two feet have the strength to carry me, first a mile, then two, and then maybe twelve.

For my first (and only) half marathon, I was injured and hadn’t trained properly because of it. I also had bronchitis. But a friend came into town to run with me, and I didn’t want to disappoint her. I wasn’t able to run the full 13.1, but I was able to run longer than I ever have before. And I still finished the race in time to receive a medal.

The experience was overwhelming—especially the realization that I was able to carry myself around the city on my own two (if blistered) feet. In fact, that day I ran to parts of town that I am often too lazy to drive to because they are “just so far away.”

I run because it puts me in tune with my body in ways I am usually not.

Experts talk about the “mind-body connection” but I think most of the time I am blissfully unaware of what my body tries to tell me. I ignore little aches and pains, am sometimes careless about my diet, or let stress build up without realizing it.

During a run, it is hard to ignore that I didn’t eat enough or eat right beforehand, that I didn’t drink enough water, stretch properly or get enough sleep. If my neck or shoulders are tense, I feel hunched and awkward during my run, or I may notice that my breathing is erratic if I am anxious or tired. This awareness has changed my runs, but more than that, it has improved my behavior when out of my running shoes.

I run because running isn’t gimmicky.

Although runners can accessorize with heart rate monitors, GPS trackers, iPods and other gadgets, all anyone really needs to run is a pair of running shoes and a place to run.

If the gym is closed, I can run around the block or at the park. Throw my shoes in a suitcase, and I can run even if I am on vacation. No special equipment, fad diet, workout guru or overly hyped DVD required.

My grandfather picked up a running habit as a teenager in the army and kept it for decades after. Running just slipped into his daily life without fanfare, but it is vivid in my childhood memories. I often conjure him up during my own difficult runs to remind myself of his no-nonsense approach.

I run because it’s ok to be a novice.

I have never excelled at group sports or really considered myself athletic. I know about as much about a weight room as I do about quantum physics. And I always forget which is overpronating and which is underpronating.

But that’s ok. Running is a sport of inclusion, not exclusion. You never know what friendship might blossom while sharing a path with a fellow runner who happens to keep the same pace as you.

There are expert competitive runners out there, but it isn’t required. If you choose to race, you will learn what not to do next time. I have been so touched by the great advice I have gotten along the way, not just from friends and loved ones, but from casual acquaintances eager to share their running passion.

I like to think of running like my first guitar lesson: You learn one or two chords, and you can strum out a tune even if you are never Van Halen. If you choose to race and graduate to foam rollers and gu, that’s great. But if you want to stick to the “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” equivalent of running, that’s cool too.

I run because it changes my perspective and teaches me about myself.

Just being on foot makes you see the scenery differently—feel it differently. It engages more of the senses. You feel a rough stretch of road in your feet or a gentle misting from a nearby sprinkler, smell new asphalt mixed with the wafting fragrance of some nearby jasmine, or the dusty taste of the air just before the rain. Trees rustle, ducks talk and bikes whiz by.

If you allow yourself to become fully aware during your run, these little daily variations on a familiar street help keep it fresh and interesting. And if you leave a familiar path to explore new roads you are sure to discover something else you never knew was there.

For me, however, a lot of time is spent getting to know my own inner monologue. Often it comes up with reasons why I really don’t need to run another lap around the park because I’m tired or hurting or it may start raining. Sometimes my inner me is just bored and wonders why I am running in the first place. Other times it thinks I am fooling myself by pretending to be athletic, and it reminds me that some bodies are just not built to run.

The more discomfort I feel, the more chatter I hear. I am learning to distance myself from these inner pronouncements, and just observe and even develop compassion for that inner voice. I use the same technique I use in yoga class—breathe in, breathe out, focus on the breath, and be fully in the present moment. Accept this moment—and myself—exactly as I am now. Right now is enough. In these moments, running is like a meditation.

And every once in a while, on a sunny morning, looking at the blue sky with a light breeze against your back and your favorite song blasting, you might accidentally find you are enjoying five miles around the park.