Should I Quit?

Some thoughts on leaving

I read a wonderful Substack post this week by Mari Andrew, whose writing I adore, and I imagine you would too.

Her post is called “When To Quit”, a simple title for the subject matter. Not too clever, not overly contrived, but direct and straightforward. Which seems ironic in a way since quitting is rarely either of those things.

Do you ever read something and realize you’ve been thinking about a certain topic for a while without knowing it? That’s what happened to me with this post. Its as if I’ve been unwittingly doing mental gymnastics over the thought of quitting for weeks now and I didn’t realize it until I somersaulted into the foam pit of Mari’s words.

Remember foam pits? The very best part of taking gymnastics as a kid. When you’re that young you have absolutely no concept of injury or fear, so you fling yourself from various springboards or trampolines or uneven bars into the giant pool of foam blocks that happily absorbs your fall.

Quick aside here, but that can’t be sanitary, can it? Surely, they don’t clean those foam blocks. God knows how much sweat or skin particles are left behind by years of kids flailing freely into those pits. Someone research this and let me know.

Foam pits, previous question aside, were the friggin’ best. Until, of course, you had to get out.

In the same way that no one looks cool walking on sand, absolutely no one gets out of a foam pit gracefully. Everything you know about physics and gravity goes right out the window when you’re trying to climb out from one of those.

Kids at least have the benefit of being small and not weighing much. Can you imagine trying to do that as an adult? I can think of few more humbling things.

And that’s exactly how I feel after reading this post. Like I’ve flung my very adult, still mildly postpartum body into a giant foam pit of thought and now I’m scrambling like an idiot to try to get back out.

As she describes her relationship with quitting (things, pursuits, boyfriends, etc.), she says at one point, “I didn’t know if I was allowed to leave. (No idea who I looked to as the keeper of the permission slips, but it sure wasn’t me.)”

And then later, “…I remind my intuition that I live in a society dominated by the masculine demand for explanation based on external facts, rather than the feminine value of mystery fueled by inner wisdom.

My intuition rolls her eyes. I tell her I’ll do better next time.”

Mari’s Foam Pit: 1, Bailey: 0

The Type A, achiever in me has a complicated relationship with quitting. I think of the age-old parenting question of what to do when your kid goes out for soccer, makes the team, gets the jersey, and then two practices in decides they hate soccer.

Do you make them go because they made a commitment and there’s a lesson to be learned there? Or do you let them quit because they hate it and life’s short and there are a million other extra curriculars they might like instead and don’t you want them to pursue their passion???

Thankfully, Jo is too young to try out for any teams or decide she hates anything other than, so far, avocado. I have a while before I have to figure out the right answer to this parenting conundrum. (Or I’ll just ask Ryan because he’s infinitely wiser and more measured than me.)

But in the past, when I’ve been simultaneously both parent and child in this scenario in my own life, when I’ve hated the proverbial game of soccer, that is to say, a hobby or a relationship or a job or even a book, I’ve never felt like I was allowed to quit.

I’m not a quitter. I’m a follow through-er. I can think of very few examples of times I’ve actually quit something in my life.

I mean, truly quit. Not leaving one job for another or picking a new major in place of my original choice (which I did 5 times and still ended up with accounting??). But really quit. Signed, sealed, delivered, we’re done.

The only two that come to mind are a hostess job I quit in high school because the manager grabbed my ass in the back room. And my first marriage. (Although marriage seems like a very generous term for what it really was. And quitting seems a bit narrow.)

Enter: “the masculine demand for explanation based on external facts.” I’m tempted, always, to explain.

Not the job, that one is pretty straightforward.

But the marriage – even all these years later, even in the midst of a second, very happy marriage – one that actually does deserve the weight of that word – I want to explain. To give you the facts. To back up the decision with logic and reason and maybe even Biblical justification.

But why? Why isn’t the “feminine value of mystery fueled by inner wisdom” enough? Inner wisdom that is, I think, inclusive of logic and Biblical truth, but not reduced to them alone.

Ultimately, that inner wisdom, which, as a Christian, is guided by the Spirit (or is it one and the same?) is what led me to that decision. And, painful though it was, it felt certain. It felt sufficient. It felt complete.

So why then, all these years later, does it not feel like enough of an explanation? And what does that have to do with today, when no one is even asking me to explain it?

Well, I’m thinking about quitting, again. Not my marriage, obviously. (Have you met Ryan? He’s literally the very best of people. And that beard…come on.) But my job, maybe. My career, maybe?

I’m still undecided.

But I have no idea how to talk about it because I don’t have the words to explain how I got here.

Unlike the divorce, it’s not that I think the facts aren’t enough of an explanation. Its that the facts aren’t really working in my favor this time around.  

Logic would tell me to stay. To keep the steady salary, the health insurance, the 401k, the stability. To stay in the lane I’ve been paving since college. To let the title and the stock option vesting schedule be enough to drown out the little voice in my head that whispers, is this really what you want?.

The facts say, sit down, ya hussy. Be grateful. Do your job.

And I am grateful. And I am, for now, doing my job.

I just don’t know that I want to. And I have no facts or logic to back that up other than that I feel it deep in my toes. The whisper. The mystery. The inner wisdom…I hope.

That might be reason enough to make a decision. Mari would say thats as good a reason as any to quit. But I’m still clawing my way out of this foam pit so I’m not steady enough on my feet yet to agree.

Instead, I think what I need to quit today is my need for certainty. My need for answers.

I think I’ll just try to be OK sitting in the discomfort for a while, giving my inner voice the time and space to figure out what she wants to say.

And meanwhile, the discomfort will keep me awake. It will be the pebble in my shoe reminding me to pay attention. To keep looking, asking, seeking, praying. To keep trusting God and myself and the ancient mystery that connects us.

To keep listening to the whisper, wherever she may lead.