Quitting the day job, people to whom I am exceedingly grateful and, as if you wanted to hear it, how busy I’ve been the last few weeks

I quit my job last week.  It wasn’t an I’ve-had-it-up-to-here spur-of-the-moment regret-it-immediately decision.  I’d been planning to make the move for a while, ever since my goal for the year got blown away and then doubled… and then my bookings moved from “manageable with a bit less sleep” to “no life whatsoever besides shooting, editing, client management and… the day job.”  Something clearly had to give.  And it did. I started writing this post the day I said the words, but of course I was too busy to actually finish it and now I’m a week out and have had some time to actually enjoy my freer schedule.  It has been, in a word, relaxing.  I actually watched a movie this week.  I cooked dinner for my husband.  I cleaned.  I’ve started to tackle all of the projects that just couldn’t make it onto the must-do list (cleaning my “area” of the house, laundry, website/branding stuff, reaching out to old and new friends to catch up, reading a damn magazine).  I’m still busy, but I’m starting to breathe. Things got crazy for me quickly in April.  I more or less had everything under control up to then, even though I was swimming in engagement sessions.  But somewhere early April things started to tip for me, what with a trip to New York to do two engagements, followed the next weekend by a wedding and two engagements, and the following weekend by a boudoir session and two weddings.  The next weekend, I went to New Orleans.  The following, one wedding, one engagement, one headshot and another boudoir session.  And then… I quit.  And this past weekend, I had absolutely no photo work to do whatsoever (besides editing, of course).  Actually, typing this out, I can’t hardly believe I got all of this done and delivered and the way I want it.  And in-between, I was trying desperately to get together my Artomatic space!  And all through the weekdays, looking through my calendar from the past month, I have orange (my color for photography business events) all over the damn weekdays – client meetings, networking events, meetings with other photographers.  In short, I’ve been really busy.  Busier than even I realized up until right now. And looking at this list of things I’ve done the past month, I’m really proud of myself.  Proud that I held it together.  Proud that my clients (hopefully) didn’t realize I was on the edge, just a bit.  Proud that, as of today, everything is delivered.  I have outstanding items with some clients, of course, but they’re not waiting on me.  It’s a beautiful feeling to be able to work on the less urgent matters.  Naturally, I have two weddings this weekend so that all goes out the window tomorrow, but today is nice.  I might even watch another movie. So I quit the job.  Would have been wise of me to quit before everything got crazy, but I set the date months ago knowing this past week was an important one for my organization.  I’ll still be working here part-time for a while (at their request) but spending a lot more time at my other computer.  I don’t have any great revelations about self-employment yet… we’ll see what happens when I really do have to rely on this income. But in the meantime, I wanted to say thank you to everyone who has helped me get to this point.  Just a few years ago, I was a total newbie shooting my friends for a “fake wedding” so I would have portfolio images.  Just a few years ago, I was blogging about what I ate for dinner, just so I would have material and hopefully improve my SEO ranking (for the record, I don’t think I have a single booking from keyword searches, just to be clear).  Not so long ago, I signed a contract with a lady to give her a twenty-two percent commission rate for weddings she sent me (we’ve since dissolved our relationship and I never did actually shoot a wedding on that contract).  In short, not all that long ago, this day seemed like a far away place.  I’m so grateful for the guidance, help, knowledge and money from these amazing folks:

• My clients.  Obviously.  Especially those first few who took the leap with me.  I recently told my first paying bride that she was – and she either gracefully lied and said she didn’t know or I was playing it that cool.  I never forget what a huge decision a wedding photographer is and I’m really grateful for each and every couple that chooses me to be there on their day.  Every wedding I photograph is an honor, a privilege, and a huge responsibility.