On January 19, I interviewed for a job at a commercial photography studio here in Monrovia.
The position? Marketing and Operations Coordinator.
And what is that, you ask? Well, it’s a real person’s job. It’s half marketing and half running the studio on a day-to-day basis. It’s something that involves business cards and travel and interactions with other real people. In short, it’s a job for which I wasn’t remotely qualified. I couldn’t imagine why they’d called me in for it and I didn’t feel like I interviewed very well. But, surprisingly, they called me in for a second interview that Friday.
On January 26, they offered me the job. I took it.
And I’ve been running to catch up ever since.
Full-time work means that I can pay my bills. It means food in the cupboard, savings in the bank, student loans dwindling month by month. It means that I can settle into a routine, work during the day, come home, and write on my screenplay, industriously pursuing what I really want to be. It means that I can put “Marketing and Operations Coordinator” on my resume and go from here anywhere that I want.
And if that were all, it would be more than enough.
But, in this case, it also means that I can walk to work. It means that I have the freedom to do my job independently, listening to music, without a hard ass boss breathing down my neck. It means that I can take long lunches in the sunshine as long as I get my work done. It means measurable progress, feeling fulfilled as I watch the company grow, and strategizing for myself a plan to make it grow even further. It means that I get to spend my time with a crazy Bulgarian, a wonderful man that makes me laugh, a man that is thrilled to let me take vacations.
It means I get to go to Australia to see Michael.
Oh, life!
And it’s not perfect; nothing is perfect. Some days will be hard and I’ll come home tired or unhappy or both. And this job won’t make me rich.
But it will sustain me. It’s a gift from God, after EIGHT INTERMINABLE MONTHS of silence, of scrambling around in the dark without coins enough even to buy a cup of coffee. I feel stunned and smitten by this new chapter in my book. I don’t – can’t – understand God’s overflowing blessings, the immeasurable grace that has followed me so long.
When I wake up now in the mornings, I have somewhere to go. I have something to do. I have someone to be.
God help me, I’m seeing stars.
