A story about quitting my job to write

and the early ecstasy of unemployment

I have a friend who has cultivated a set of savings called her f*ck off money. She explains how these differ from her other savings, the ones meant for her future of serious adulting, her many travels, or her emergency funds. The exact point of ‘f*ck off money’ (sometimes f*ck you money) is to be able to do just that; to announce it in some way or another, embody it without having to sacrifice any part of your staying in the space once the phrase has been released. Usually, the sentence is unleashed into some corporate space, amidst a moment you do not wish to belong to, an email signed off with ‘Regards’. This money, my friend says, is meant to save you from the discomfort of dwelling where there is obvious disrespect.

I had arrived at the height of my breaking point: a long and obvious string of ‘Regards’ emails. And so, as I thought I would be preparing for the next step on the crumbling corporate ladder, I activated that appropriate expletive stash as I sent over my resignation letter, and leapt off the hampster wheel for clarity.

I’ve learnt that some women call this their ‘under-the-bed money’. I was never taught that I should have this, or at least in this phrasing, but I see that it is wise. Still, life has shown me how immediately I have needed my very own pot of f*ck off money. The latter being, perhaps, more useful as a Black woman professional and former ardent runner in the rat race. I needed f*ck off money, as you might if you identify as I do, in order to self-preserve.

Unfortunately, we seem to all have that one job that we need to leave for the sake of our mental/emotional well-being. This was that. Once, a manager at this job invited me into her glass-walled office to theatrically scold me about an event that I wasn’t responsible for, one which happened outside of my working hours. I often praise myself for not reacting to the way the 5 sheets of paper she flung onto the table with such violence caused 4 or 5 of her strands of hair to mightily blow back, revealing a frown, because she was so very livid. I remember how, unlike her outburst, she closed the flimsy doors of her office, as if her retracted apology was to be secret. These things happen one by one and remind me that working office environments can often be devoid of the grace and ease that I always live by. I left quite happily, pretended that I had a new job lined up rather than be truthful in that I was just too tired of the casual disrespect of being a young Black professional in a UK office.

And so, while job-hunting amid a pandemic for a coveted Marketing position (I would get one, the only corporate job I truly liked), I wrote.

Each day I woke up with actual butterflies in my stomach; I could spend the day, all of it, if I wanted, writing. Take my time with my breakfast and make a grand journey to my writing desk (my dining table, which I hadn’t been able to host on for months during the pandemic, but spent hours finishing and starting projects on), to open my laptop, spread out a selection of books by my side, and reveled; I had no-one, no email, to answer to, only notes for poems, essays, travel stories from all the last places I had time to write about. I smiled often. Gazed at the winter sunlight, noticed my plants, and spent hours doing the usually unjustifiable work of thinking and lying down to gather memories before writing. I could be so, so generous with myself now that the f*ck off money had released me from being where my heart was not.

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Today, as a freelance writer and essayist, I cherish those days. I celebrate the way I gently unknotted whatever sat stubbornly in my stomach, the guilt, the sense that writing was a side hustle rather than all I woke up and wanted to do. I had my first commission in travel writing during this time- an exciting three-part story about travelling to Jamaica solo after a trip booked with an ex went very wrong (perfectly so). I was also able to edit, with my most vital morning energy, my debut poetry book during daylight hours. I took walks on a Wednesday at 2pm and came home to read Didion and Baldwin and destroy my impostor’s syndrome that made this dream life of mine seem so far-fetched. I needed the money though, so I kept interviewing (quite tirelessly) and landed a job in the January that was remote and while softer, still quite demanding.

I joke that I spent my month of unemployment cosplaying being a reclusive writer, banished from society. I prefer that I banished myself from what society deemed standard: to hate one’s job. I was reclusive only in that I had never had such capacity for my creative writing before. I was always stealing from company time, extending lunch breaks, or staying up late alight with new poetry, calling in sick for three days to maniacally complete a manuscript to impress my would-be publisher. When I quit, I put an end to all of that and ushered myself into a space of extreme, irresistible ease.

During that month, I wrote one of my favorite stories yet, some travel writing from a trip to Havana, Cuba, my last before the unknowing March of that year. I was solo in Cuba, days before my 24th birthday, being invited to dance in the streets, to roam with new friends, to write it all down for later, to see myself unhurried and almost missing flights saying goodbye in airports. I wrote in this piece also about writing reflectively on the simplicity of travel, about almost being a year older with no prospects of jean shorts in February, but in the kitchen, my favourite room in my apartment, the one I didn’t know I would pack up and leave for adventures and living out of too-large suitcases that I would abandon in a small town in Mexico and come back for, many months later.

It really was the beginning of my long love affair with having the sense and bravery enough to opt out.

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Thank you, so much, for your presence and reading.

If you’re looking for writing prompts, I’ve curated a list of 28 journal prompts for entering a new season. I hope it deeply supports you.

Until the next letter.

Amara Amaryah.