This post is shared from my lifestyle design blog for millennials, The Fab Life Project!

Today, in celebration of relaunching my blog, and my dedication to supporting women who are driven to live life on their own terms, I want to tell you all about how on this exact date, a year ago, I nearly made one of the biggest mistakes of my life that would have completely thrown my plan for how I want to build my fab life, nearly ran horribly off the rails.

We’re talking the kind of mistake that would have backed me into a corner, with no real options but to fight my way out, and it would have tied me to this idea of a life that I was choosing by default in a faint attempt to convince myself of the dreams I’ve had for the unconventional way I want to live weren’t really important to me.

Ya’ll…I almost signed a lease for an apartment by myself in New York City.

A lease that would have put me on the line and made me responsible for approximately $1,550 per month.

A lease that would have quickly killed dreams of traveling and financial independence. A lease that would have trapped me for at least a year (or more given the insane broker’s fees here) into giving up a level of freedom for creature comforts that I knew, KNEW, deep down in my heart I didn’t want.

I was due to walk down to the apartment leasing office at 7:30 am on August 15th and sign my name on the dotted line.

So, what stopped me? How am I still writing this from my shared, three-bedroom apartment which is waaaaay cheaper than $1550 per month?

I got laid off from my job the exact same day that I was supposed to sign the lease.

Crazy huh? You see, the night before, my friend/colleague texted me to ask if I had checked my work email. I had not as my general rule is to leave work at work.

She told me to check it, ASAP.

I logged in and saw that I had two messages: one from the CEO of our company that said additional cuts had to be made (this was the second round of layoffs) and that unlike the first round (where people got about six weeks to stay on the job collecting a check,) cuts would be happening ASAP, as in the next day. He went on to say that if you received an email from your boss, to arrange a call with them.

The second message that I had, of course, was from my boss asking what time we could chat in the AM.

I stared in disbelief for a minute at my phone screen, and then I started to laugh hysterically. I was partially giddy, but all the way in shock that this email, the text from my friend, and the odds of those things getting to me when they did.

I was losing my job, less than 24 hours before I was to sign a lease that would have cost me $1,550 per month, which is over $18,000 dollars a year in rent.

At this point in my story, you might have some questions, right?

I seem pretty aware of the numbers, I’ve clearly done the math. Girl, you already know I had multiple Pinterest boards ready of furniture ideas that would have cost me another couple of G’s, easily. And if all of this is the case, and I was ready to mosey on down to the rental office, then why the hell am I calling it a “mistake” ?

Because that money, that rent, the energy that I was getting ready to spend on that apartment wasn’t going to be happening in love.

That lease wasn’t about to be signed because my heart was all in it, and I was ready to take on this massive responsibility both in celebration of making enough to afford it (with major scaling back to disposable income), but it was a cry for help from my head to my heart as I struggled to rationalize soothing the pain of hurts that I was avoiding in my life.

One of those things? The job I got laid off from.

While I had a lot of coworkers who were wonderful and so down to do good work, I doubted some of the things that were happening behind the scenes with leadership, and frankly, was disgusted at the way I saw some of our staff and the population we served being treated.

Do you know what it feels like to show up at a job every day that your soul and spirit are not in alignment with?

For me, it looked like TJ Maxx shopping sprees on my lunch break, happy hours to drown out my inner voice, and yes, running to attach myself to a high rent situation despite the fact that my company was CLEARLY unstable.

Like so many women I know, I was doing retail therapy instead of real therapy to figure out what void I was shopping to fill.

Whooo! Tell me in the comments if you’ve been there before!

I’m reminded of the lyrics in Solange’s song, “Cranes In The Sky”

“I ran my credit card bill up
Thought a new dress would make it better
I tried to work it away
But that just made me even sadder”

I was going to attempt to build this ideal home because damnit, I deserved it, didn’t I? Didn’t I work hard daily? What was I putting up with all of this mess for if I wasn’t going to have anything to show for it?

How does a woman who has been proud to tell people that at one time, all I owned could fit into two suitcases nearly sign her life away in a material fit of madness?

Living off-center. Not on my own terms. On the edge of two worlds, one I’ve never dared to reach for.

I gave you something to think about, lady.

Stay tuned!

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