Guest Article: Restless Brain Syndrome, or Breaking Up With My Freelance Career

by CJ

In college, I was more interested in boys and partying than in preparing myself for a career, so it should have been no surprise when, on graduation day, I hadn’t a clue what to do next. I floundered for a couple of months (and yes, I moved back home with my parents) and then landed a job as an AmeriCorps VISTA volunteer, running a mentoring program for at-risk kids.

Although the job was certainly meaningful, it wasn’t intellectually satisfying enough for my hyperactive brain. So I floundered a bit more and ended up taking a writing class at a local university. I knew I liked to read and write, but what I really liked to do was clean up other people’s writing. They would create the stuff, and I would polish it. I confessed my aspirations to my writing professor after class one day and asked if she knew if there were any jobs where I could do this. “You mean like a copy editor?” she asked.

It had a name! Soon I moved to a bigger city and landed a copy-editing internship with a weekly newspaper. I was doing what I’d always wanted to do — only for free. After several months and with the guidance of a very patient mentor, I gradually got better at catching stuff and mastered the paper’s style guide. The weekly put me on its payroll, and I was off. That was almost 10 years ago, and I’m now a full-time freelance editor. I have enough work to stay busy, and I’m earning more than I thought I would at this point in my freelance career. Life is good, right?

When I got my first copy-editing job, I felt a huge sense of relief that I had found what I was “meant” to do. I was so fulfilled, so utterly in my element, that I thought my relationship with editing would last forever. But lately I’ve been getting restless. Really restless. Working from home is a great gig, but it can be isolating, and without the collaboration with colleagues that one gets in an office, I’m starting to feel out of the loop of society. Invisible. I don’t have kids at home; I’m not an introverted person; I’m not disabled; I’m relatively young. I think — dare I say it? — I want to work in an office again.

My friends and family are surprised by my restlessness, and so am I, frankly. I could easily do this for the rest of my working life. But that’s the point: “Easily” isn’t how I want to live. I like challenges and learning new things. I like starting over from scratch and struggling for success. So these days, I’m looking around at graduate schools, law schools in particular. It’ll take me a year or two to finish breaking up with editing, but when I do, I know I won’t look back. Rat race, here I come!

CJ, who wishes to remain sort of anonymous, is a freelance editor and writer who lives on the West Coast. She enjoys swimming, reading, and hiking with her dog. These days, she’s saving up for an LSAT prep course. This is her first post for Biz Chicks Rule.

Contents © Copyright 2008 Kristen King

(photo via SXC.hu)