I quit my day job on Monday.

It was the second career change I’ve hit in the past month. ComicsAlliance closed a month ago. I knew the Friday before the news broke across the comics internet. It was a surprise, and an unpleasant one, but I took the weekend to get used to the idea and start making plans for the future. I worked through it, got over it, and moved on before everyone else found out it happened.

I hung out with people, I had some nice times, and then the week started. People slowly started noticing, rumors started flying, and people started talking about what ComicsAlliance meant to them. Some people were hilariously negative, but most were overwhelmingly positive.

I didn’t dwell on the reaction to the closure, but it was hard to miss. I’m on Twitter during my workday because I like to take brief breaks while I work, and it’s nice to be able to hop off, have a conversation and hop back on. I write quickly, so it doesn’t particularly set me back or anything. But that day, it seemed like every tweet and retweet was about ComicsAlliance.

It made everything real in a way being told about the closure over IM didn’t. I thought I’d made my peace with it, but I didn’t. I realized that it actually did hurt more than I expected it to, and that forced me to think a lot about where I’m at, where I’m going, and what I was capable of doing.

That part sucked. I’m not particularly great at doing commercial posts, the kind that bring in the hits, and I don’t care about reviewing the same comics week-in, week-out. Who cares, right? I could bend and do those things, but I’d be faking it. I’d be hacking it out. That, to me, is a worse sin than being bad at something. Do it or don’t, but don’t do it in half-measures.

I gave a lot of thought to what I wanted to do and what I felt I could reasonably do. I had this plan to go full freelance by the end of the year, and had started reaching out to people to see if I could make that happen. Not so much — everyone wants one or two pieces every now and then, but nobody wants a regular stream of features. Something’s better than nothing, but something didn’t quite fit my goals. Something would keep me where I am, instead of pushing forward. It would be treading water, when what I really needed was to swim. I’ve been treading for years, I realized, and that wasn’t good enough.

I put a lot of thought into what I do, offline and online, and decided I needed a change. That’s why this site exists, to give me a chance to do something I need to do in order to move forward.

Quitting my day job, the thing that pays my rent, wasn’t part of the plan, until suddenly it was a necessity. I made the decision one day and, just like when CA closed, I thought it through and I was comfortable with it, or at least accepting of it. There were a couple weeks of hardcore turmoil, but when I made the decision, I felt better. I’d been talking it over with friends, too, which helps me process things.

I gave two weeks notice on Monday morning. I walked to Starbucks in the afternoon with a few friends, and pretty much as soon as we left the office I told them. They were real supportive, which is nice. Nice is understating it, maybe. But I felt good about it. Even still, it didn’t feel real until I was walking to the bus. My eyes were watery and my head was full of bees. It had finally sunk in.

Listen: I’m 29 years old. I turn 30 in November. I’ve been doing this job, or some variant thereof, for eight years. I did two years freelance. I’ve been working with people in and around this company since 2004 or 2005. I quit college and moved to San Francisco in 2007 when I went full-time with a salary. I got an apartment that was as expensive as it was small and I lived there for five and a half years. I’ve been through four offices and a lot of interns. I’ve flown to Japan for this job. I’ve had this job longer than I’ve intentionally done just about anything in my entire life. 4thletter! is the only thing that comes close to beating it, I think. This gig is older than most of my friendships, even.

I moved around a lot as a kid. I went to two elementary schools, four middle schools, and three high schools. That’s nine schools for thirteen years of education. I rarely spent more than two years in the same house. I quickly learned how to make friends (be funny) and how to get over losing friends (put it out of your head).

It’s less true now. I think I’m still pretty good at making friends, but giving up friends? Giving up other things? I always underestimate what it’s gonna feel like. I feel bad, then I get over feeling bad, and then I realize, no, I’m not done yet. I didn’t process it as well as I thought I did.

I have new things coming, things I think are gonna be pretty cool, but it’s weird to shut the door on two major parts of my life, to turn away from almost ten years of my life, and see what’s next. I have faith things will work out okay, but it’s no less terrifying than it was when it was a hypothetical scenario. But I’m getting by. I’m getting used to the idea. I’ve got another week of normal left and then I’ll figure it out as I go along.