Today marks five years since my mom’s Alzheimer’s diagnosis and the second time I have quit my job in pursuit of a dream.
The first time was in 2011, when I quit my proofreading job at an ad agency to travel around the world solo. My trip ended after three months when I badly sprained my ankle in Thailand. I came home, reunited with Aaron, got a job as a copywriter at a tech startup and got engaged. Things were starting to sour at that job by the time Aaron and I got married in 2014, and when we wanted to start trying for a baby in 2015, I knew I had to find a different job first—one I’d actually want to go back to after maternity leave.
My former boss—who had already escaped the sourness—actually found the Nordstrom job listing and sent it to me: “You’d be perfect for this.” I started my new job writing product descriptions for Nordstrom.com in July 2015 and was pregnant by August.
Around my daughter’s first birthday, I moved to the marketing team to write web campaigns and emails, which is what I’ve been doing ever since. My career at Nordstrom has spanned Evie’s entire life, including in utero. Until now.
I wrote in March about feeling destabilized after layoffs impacted many of my co-workers and I was moved to a different team. It happened at the same time my mom was kicked off hospice, and both sudden changes left me feeling helpless and abandoned. I tried to focus on being grateful I still had a job and dove into my new role, but it quickly became clear it was not a good creative fit for me. I starting looking at job listings and even applied for some, but mostly just wished I could go back to my old team.
In May, my old team was struggling—they’d lost me, but not my workload—and reached out to my new team for help. I talked my way into being loaned back to my old team to help out through the busiest time of year. When I was told I had to go back to the new team at the end of September, I thought about how unhappy I was doing work I didn’t enjoy and how relieved I felt when I resumed the work I do enjoy. The only thing running through my mind, over and over, was Kamala Harris’ campaign slogan: “We are not going back.” It was time for me to leave.
There were many conversations about my decision over the course of a few weeks, but my gut reaction remained the same, and I submitted my resignation in mid October. I knew in 2015 that a big change was necessary, and I knew it again now. Back then it was so I could become a mother. This time, it’s so I can become a mother again, but to a different kind of baby: a book.
In January, I started writing a book proposal and researching the process of querying literary agents. I started to believe I could actually do this big, scary thing I’d always wanted to do, but never felt confident enough to try. Then everything flipped upside down in February and I put the project on the back burner. But all year long, that book has been tugging at my brain. I’ve been shaping the narrative and writing chapters in my head. I’ve been dying for the time to finish the proposal and start making my dream a reality.
I’m tremendously lucky to have Aaron’s support in leaving my job and throwing all my energy into writing this book and getting it published. When I asked him if he was okay with the idea, it took him about half a second to say, “Of course.” I think he and my close friends are sick of hearing me talk about it and thrilled that I’ve finally got the guts to do it. Their instantaneous and unwavering support has been invaluable. The hardest part of all of this has been giving myself permission.
Just as in 2011, it was incredibly difficult to walk away from the security of my job. If I hadn’t been moved to a different team, I probably never would have left. I believe in signs from the universe and feel the move put me at a crossroads and forced me to make a choice: Follow the path of safety and regret, or forge a new path of uncertainty and personal fulfillment.
Before I submitted my resignation, I took the dogs on a long walk so I could think about everything. We took a different route than usual and happened upon a house with several painted rocks nestled in a planter next to the sidewalk. My eyes went straight to this one.
I later returned to claim this rock, and I’ll keep it next to my laptop as I write and face uncertainty and write and deal with rejection and write and hopefully get a big win eventually. I know in my bones I’ll never regret trying, and that’s enough for me.
So what’s the deal with this book? It’s a memoir about my mom, of course, and about me as well. I’m far from the first person to feel compelled to write about a dying or dead parent, but I’ve struggled to find a book that captures the unvarnished experience of early onset Alzheimer’s. And five years into this, as I continue to sort through hundreds of her photos and letters—my mom kept everything—I’m learning more about her life in the only way I still can.
She hid the most tender parts of herself even when she was well, so I only knew the tough exterior she chose to show the world. A lifelong quilter, she spent thousands of hours stitching her stories with fabric and thread—a language I don’t speak. I’ll share what I learned when dementia began to unravel the truths she sought to keep hidden. I’ll also recount my own truths I’ve never written about before. If the ravages of Alzheimer’s await me, I want my daughter to know who I really am.
It’ll be a memoir about autonomy won and lost; about self-determination, resilience and the power of the mother-daughter bond; about all the joys and sorrows that are sewn together to tell the stories of our lives—and make them worth remembering.
I have no illusions that this will be a quick, easy or even profitable journey. Luckily, I’m well trained in mental and emotional endurance. My plan is to put my head down and write, write, write through November—which, coincidentally (or not?), is National Novel Writing Month—and see how the story takes shape, then finish my book proposal and start querying literary agents in the new year. I only need a few sample chapters to send out with my memoir proposal (whereas novels require a completed manuscript), but I want to get into the habit of writing every day and honing the best material.
It would be so chic and cool to not tell you about any of this and then suddenly post about signing with an agent or scoring a book deal, but my biggest wins come from declaring I’m going to do something that feels scary and impossible, then using the adrenaline from making my goal public to power through and actually do it.
And I could really use your support and belief in me. I know a number of you have been following along with my story for more than a decade. I hope you’ll come along as I write the next chapters.
Dev on Running 