Looking for a compliment or two

Working my butt off and still feeling insecure

Hello! We have a few new subscribers this week who aren’t members of my immediate network (exciting!). Welcome to The Purse! My name is Lindsey Stanberry, I just quit my full-time job, and I’ve been writing about the experience. But this is also just a safe space to talk about money! So feel free to tell me everything…

The first draft of this email was a total pity party. Last week was hard. New York’s air quality crisis was really stressful. The whole thing felt like a replay of the earliest COVID days: wearing masks, canceling plans, and my kid doing remote school (the worst!).

And then, just as the skies were clearing on Friday, I threw my back out. I simply set a dress on my bed, and that was enough to send my lower back into agonizing spasms. I wanted to crawl back into bed, but I sucked it up, put on the offending dress, and (mostly) stuck with my appointments, hobbling across Manhattan and Brooklyn.

By the time I did get into bed Friday night, I was done. Overwhelmed and honestly feeling a bit hopeless, I sobbed to Ken, What the hell am I doing? Another week on the books, and I didn’t feel like I had anything to show for it.

Also, I don’t know what I’m doing. This exploratory phase I’m living in feels really self-indulgent at times. Even calling it an “exploratory phase” makes me roll my eyes. And after 10 years in digital media, I’m a little worried I’ve come to simply expect overnight results, and that even applies to my own career trajectory.

In the roughly three weeks since I officially quit my job, I’ve been hustling. I’ve taken on two freelance editing gigs, begun consulting for a fintech start-up, and launched this newsletter.