Pivot

A word we all heard a lot in The Year of Our Lord 2020 was “pivot.”

When everything shifted, then shut down, in March, “pivot” was used to the point of cliche — by businesses, publications organizations, schools, family and friends, the government, etc. It made for great memes (The Office, anyone?), but the meaning was real. For just about everyone, the theme of the year was adjusting when the world turned on a dime.

Change has never been something I’m scared of. In fact, to a fault, stagnation is my fear. I come from a long line of decisive, quick-responding people, and those traits have served me well — when it’s time to move, I move, and don’t linger. I can make a good plan fast and execute it; and usually, it turns out well.

I have long tried to make creative work my full-time job, and have been lucky to do so for years. From my first creative jobs writing in college, to my first post-grad social media coordinator gig, to an internship doing marketing work for nonprofit and missions ministries around the world, to launching and managing RightNow Media’s social presence, to rewriting Kingsland’s student curriculum on contract; I’ve gotten to pioneer or partner in all kinds of creative projects, and I wouldn’t trade it for the world.

By this time last year, though, I realized my dream was shifting. I was tired of doing other people’s creative work. I wanted to do mine. And while some people have the hustle to make that alone financially viable, I no longer felt guilty for admitting I wasn’t one of them. The odds weren’t good, and the life trade-off wasn’t worth it. I was ready for something different — to create in the margins. To have a job that allowed for that. To not feel like I was letting my younger self down or throwing in some artist towel.

Meanwhile, I’d started coaching for Momentum in the fall of 2019. It was purely for fun — something our GM talked me into, actually, and probably just because I was there so often — but I took to it like a fish to water. It was a perfect combination for my strengths and passions — people and communication skills, a chance for meaningful influence with teens, a sport I love. It stretched and pushed me. It was gloriously tangible after a strictly digital career.

I picked up more classes each season, accepted head coach training, started acquiring what credentials and certifications I could. I followed my curiosity, and found that others in the company were incredibly generous in their willingness to open the doors to which that curiosity led. I joined operations staff, taking opportunities to learn and progress as they came; and by the new year, I knew I had found what I’d been looking for.

My plan was to finish out my writing contract with Kingsland, then go full-time with the gym. I could supplement my income with creative freelance, still; but I would have insurance, enough money to pay my bills, and be part of a company and community I loved with all my heart. I had no backup plan. I didn’t need one.

Until, of course, I did.

We got word that the gym would have to close its doors the evening of March 15. The writing had been on the walls for days — it was that early season in the pandemic that’s easier to brush over now, in retrospect, but was terrifying (and terrifyingly uncertain) then. The staff had been spending our days with bottles of disinfectant spray like physical appendages, wiping down everything in sight incessantly. The traffic dwindled and customers asked questions no one had answers to. There were lots of hushed conversations and dark jokes. And finally, one of our managers delivered the news to those of us closing that night — we wouldn’t be opening in the morning. We were closed. Temporarily, but indefinitely. Two weeks was the initial call. We all knew it’d be more.

I tied up ropes and turned off the fans and took out trash and hid in the setters closet and cried for about ten minutes, grieving what I already knew in my gut was the loss of a plan I loved. Climbing gyms run on tight margins as-is. The loss of a temporary shut-down would be brutal, no matter what. There was no way new hires would be a wise move after a blow like that. At that point, we didn’t know if we would survive the blow at all, seeing as it was in progress. It was time for me to pivot. Big. But this time, I didn’t want to.

I started working on my teaching cert almost immediately after; fueled mostly, honestly, by desperation. I had considered it before. I knew I liked teenagers. I liked the schedule. It had health insurance. I thought I could be good at it. And teachers had jobs in a global pandemic. Which wasn’t a qualifier I’d ever had for career options in the past, but hey, here we are.

Despite my, uh, less-than-star-student track record, academics themselves have always come naturally to me. With nothing much else to do, and a lot more discipline than I displayed in college, the coursework flew by, easy. I maintained an abysmal attitude towards the whole thing, but I found myself — begrudgingly — keeping a small list of ideas I’d picked up from classes. Things I’d want to implement in my own classroom if I had to do this. If all else failed. My gym dreams prevailed even as the weeks we were closed dragged on.

By the time our first post-closure staff meeting was called in May, I was more than halfway done with the cert. I walked in with a sort of hunger for the place, breathing deep and dying to climb. Ops crew members had the chance to climb in small, socially-distanced groups according to a time-blocked schedule as we deep-cleaned and prepped for reopening, and I attacked old projects and new routes like I was never going to get the chance again. I fell back in love with the whole thing all over. We stair-stepped back to something resembling as-normal-as-possible operations at the gym over the summer, and I was there what felt like every waking second; working and hoping to keep working, pulling on plastic when I wasn’t, and honestly, not making much progress on the certification at all. I’d said I was trying to be done in time to apply for jobs in the fall, but I still didn’t really want to. Still wasn’t sure I couldn’t make the gym work.

When August rolled around, a lot of things happened at once. It seemed like all my people simultaneously launched into large-scale transition periods. My roommates and I had a move impending that, it was becoming clear, was just going to wind up increasing all of our expenses by a lot. I got word that I’d been matched with Yoder and agreed to take the leap in getting him. I started looking at my own future with a more critical eye, evaluating what I wanted and felt called to. And more and more, I knew my present didn’t align with it. I needed to complete the turn I’d started earlier that year. I just still couldn’t completely shake the resentful feeling that my hand was being forced instead of reaching on its own.

The past year, in general, was good for my relationship with God in an honest sort of way. I have never believed I need to be nice with him all the time — I’m emotional in a wide-ranging way, and I figure he wired me and knows and appreciates it. I go to him happy, sad, mad, doubtful, confused, surprised, grieving, celebrating, everything in between. And sometime around September, I finally prayed, “Hey. If you want me to teach, if this is the direction we’re going, I’m going to need you to make me want it. Because I don’t.”

Say what you want, believe what you will. I woke up the next day wanting to work on that cert. And the day after that. And the day after that. I dove back into the coursework, confused but riding the motivation wave. I stayed up late, got up early, utilized slow periods at the gym — those first couple hours after opening, that often-ghostly hour towards close. I finished my district substitute application and blazed through the hiring process, immediately snapping up jobs, desperate for experience, however unready I felt.

At the same time, it seemed like teachers came out of the woodwork in all areas of my life, encouraging me and bolstering my confidence and stretching out arms to help how they could. Friends sent me their vacation schedules, giving me first crack at substituting. People I never knew were teachers randomly brought it up in conversation. Climbers I’d known in passing for years stopped by the front desk — “I heard you’re working on a teaching certificate. What program are you going through? How far along? Do you need sub jobs? Need to meet people? What do you want to teach? How can I help?" When I found out one couple in particular — the parents of a spunky girl I’d coached in summer camps — were both teachers, they became patron saints of sorts for me. They have hobbies and are interesting and kind and outdoorsy and seem to genuinely like each other and their kid and take road trips and have fun adventures. They are the kind of people I want to be like, anyway. That they were teachers, for some reason, was immensely bolstering to me.

It felt as if I was going in the right direction, but suddenly, the going was a thousand miles per hour. In a span of about two weeks, I finished all my coursework and field observations, registered for my content test, and began subbing in Katy ISD. I continued hovering at just-under-full-time hours at the gym; often sprinting to Momentum in a professionally-dressed blur straight from playing teacher at a school, changing into leggings and a staff t-shirt in the bathroom, and emerging to manage the closing shift. I studied for my test. I barely climbed. I took freelance photography jobs when I could, trying to pad my bank account as much as I could. I packed boxes in spare minutes and hours, prepping to move. I had that exhilarating feeling of keeping many spinning plates in the air, even though I knew from experience that at some point they would crash.

It was Yoder, ultimately — though ironically, considering that paying for him was the motivator for so much of my motion — who slowed me down enough to realize I couldn’t keep on. My roommates and I moved Friday and Saturday of the weekend I got him. I dragged boxes into my new room, packed a backpack, and started driving to Ohio Sunday morning. I called my grandparents at some point on the way up, and my mom’s mom asked how I was doing, really. I told her the gist. She told me things were going to work out, that I was making good decisions, and to not be so hard on myself. I cried.

The next day, I found myself in a hotel room in Wapakoneta, Ohio, staring out the window and feeling shell-shocked. I spent that week falling in love with my dog, training with him, and realizing just how much he was about to change my life. By the time we drove home, I knew something had to give, and there was only one logical choice, even if it broke my heart a little bit. I made an appointment with my manager at the gym to quit. Then I drove for a few hours in total silence, gripping the steering wheel and thinking about how I’d just put all my eggs in one basket.

I made a list at some point last year when everything first spun into motion: Reasons Why I Love Working at the Gym. There were only a few bullet points, though all were significant. But when I looked over it, I realized — I can have these things still without this being my job. The community, the camaraderie, my progression in the sport itself. I didn’t have to give those things up by pursuing a different career.

In fact, as I looked towards the future and where I thought I might like to end up, I realized that teaching suited and supported all of those things well. I don’t know if it will be what I do forever. I don’t think I’ll do any job forever. But teaching is meaningful, reasonably flexible, and gives me a path forward towards a lot of things I value. In December, as I finally eased back into a climbing schedule all my own, I surprised myself by sending my first 5.12 — a goal for the year I figured had died with my career change. I got in my car after the session and just sat there for about twenty minutes. “It’s going to be okay,” I said out loud, to myself, in the middle of the parking lot. “This is going to work.”

In retrospect, of course, it all makes sense. It also just felt like the pivot was going to happen regardless. But it took surrender to give into the movement, and the growth it required of me is what I’m most proud of from the past year, hands-down. I can see now that I’ve landed on a really good path, but the getting there was a whirlwind of epic proportions — like being spit out by a tornado or something, and happening to land in a junior high.

Which I did, by the way! The eggs I was so nervous to put in one basket? They hatched less than 24 hours after the fact. I subbed for Memorial Parkway Junior High the day after getting home with Yoder, and they offered me a long-term job through the end of the school year the same day. I accepted it on the spot. It supported me financially while I took and passed my final tests, gave me the experience I needed to apply for a full-time spot with them, and led to being offered — and, once again, immediately accepting — an 8th grade English teaching position for the fall. Grateful would be an understatement. I could not love the school or people more.

I’m slowly learning the new rhythm of my life, but it felt right this week to look back and appreciate just how much has changed. I think it’s good — I’ll even go so far now as to say I think it’s better. But the turn was a scary one for me; new territory and a whole new test of fear and faith, and I know I’m not the only one that underwent it. To everyone out there who’s spent the last year in one big pivot: You’re doing it. We’re doing it. And I’m proud of how far we’ve come.