A few years ago I quit my UX job and didn't tell my family for months.
I'd been a UX designer. It was a good career. People told me so. "Why are you wasting this?" they said, when I started talking about leaving UX design to join the startup world, or do something else in the creative space, something that didn't have a clean title. I didn't have a good answer. I just knew I'd stopped enjoying the work and had run out of patience for doing it.
So I quit. Left for my peace. That was the only reason I had.
Every morning I left home like I was going to the office. I went to my friend's cafe instead. Ran events there. Kept my finances together somehow. Walking back home through the door each night felt icky. Not guilty, just a lot of ick. Like I was relieved nobody asked questions, and also sitting with this low-grade wonder at how the hell I was managing it.
The next job found me at that cafe because I was putting my self out there hosting events and was offered a job. That stretch is what people would eventually call luck.
I think about that version of me a lot right now. She moved without proof. She just knew the direction.
That's always been how it works for me. And lately I've been acting like it isn't.