Every two to three years I feel like my life needs a pivot. Pivots are what the internet calls sharp turns, before life takes you down a surprising and scary and totally new direction.
Pivots flip your life on its head. Pivots begin and end important chapters in your life. Make you use the phrase, “I can’t believe what I’ve accomplished,” but also the phrase “I can’t believe how badly I’ve fucked up.” The best part about them is that they are not all self directed. Sometimes, the Universe gets tired of your stubborn resistance to something that’s going to be good for you and leaves you no choice but to turn.
Some of my pivots :
An essay I wrote as punishment in school for forgetting to bring the book we’d been asked to. My English teacher pulled me over after class to tell me I had a knack for creative writing and I should consider pursuing it.
When I decided to quit a degree at 23 and apply to grad school in New York.
That terrible, emotionally excruciating breakup I kept undone for so long it finally murdered my heart for good last summer.
Living alone for the first time, how it triggered the kind of healing I didn’t know I needed.
Perhaps, pivots require courage and openness. They surprise you, like boulders coming rushing down a mountain. As someone who is both a creature of habit and self admittedly bad at taking risks, my knee jerk reaction is to always avoid what’s about to happen. I resist, I push against, I pretend it isn’t happening (this is also exactly how I respond to a crush).
When they’re happening, pivots make me feel overcome with a loss of control over the steering wheel. I don’t know what to do with my hands. I have more questions than answers. I go to bed uncomfortable and wake up in the middle of the night to journal.
I spend so much time in my head alone - taking the subway alone, living alone, shopping and walking and waking up alone - that there’s a whole other voice in my head. For a little while now, it’s been suggesting that it’s time to move my feet and take them down a different road. I’ve been ignoring it.
But it’s only gotten louder. I don’t know if it’s the new year or the fact that I’m getting closer to turning 30, if it’s that I still want to relish in the recklessness that you’re only allowed in your twenties. I don’t know if it’s straight up boredom or some divine intuition from the Universe.
I’m aware that pivots get harder the older you are. The stakes get higher, there are more responsibilities and ties to cut. Parents can’t abandon children and leave to make homes on a different continent. If you’re married, maybe you’d be reluctant to leave your partner or at the very least offer it up for discussion because you have somebody else’s feelings to take into consideration. If I had just bought a house, I’d probably avoid quitting my job to go eat pray love, because I’d have a monthly mortgage due.
I don’t. I have no children and no partner and no loans to pay on homes. I don’t have a car, or a pet, and my closest friends live in different cities so we mostly make very long phone calls to one another.
I’m a ship currently anchored in New York, but do I have to be? I could live in Europe. I could move home. I have a job in finance, but do I have to stay? I could start my own company and pitch it to Y-combinator. I could get a dog. I could chop my hair off into an aggressively short pixie cut and start wearing lots of eye makeup again. I have no loose ends to tie up, which is convenient for a quick exit. On the five stop ride between Brooklyn and Manhattan, I’ve been mulling over the options in my mind like playdough.
I don’t know why I’m wrestling this feeling when I’ve finally got the life I dreamt of for as long as I can remember. I slogged endlessly to get all my cards upright and when they’re finally in order, I can’t seem to sit still. I feel overcome with the desire to toss them up at the sky. I’m itching to play a different game, even if I suck. To do a massive closet cleanout and throw away things I no longer wear or love. To change everything beyond recognition. Again.
Maybe my pivots come with the highest pressure of them all - impressing whoever’s watching, especially the harshest critic : myself. I don’t think I want to be the girl who got it all and then gambled it away in one bad bet. I have a great life, and so much independence. I’m afraid to lose it all, but I’m afraid I’m wasting precious time with my indecisiveness.
For now, I’m frozen at the precipice of a big leap, still weighing my risks and rewards. I want to turn that corner. I want to be free of attachment, free of my own shackles, free of the fear of failure, free to pivot.