Fear, Exposed – Featuring Jenny Foss
Photo credit: Chris Jemigan
Well helllllo you sexy bunch of readers, you. Here we are again for another Tuesday edition of Fear, Exposed, the series by you and for you on the obstacles, challenges, or fears you’ve encountered on your unconventional path…and how you’ve overcome them. (If you’re interested in submitting, send a brief overview to ash [at] themiddlefingerproject [dot] org!)
This week we have a little bit of a LOVE STORY going on–I’m happy to have the lovely, fearless Jenny Foss, whose story will totally make you realize that anything must be possible.
It is, isn’t it?
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There’s been fear. Oh yes, there has been.
It’s not that I grew up the afraid kid. I really don’t think I did. Certainly I had my share of “Oh God, the popular kids don’t like me! Whatever will I DO?” moments. Yes, plenty of them. However, I recall always feeling some sort of great big adventure cooking inside of me, and that didn’t scare me one bit.
It excited me.
Unfortunately, a series of early adult failures (OK, we will call them “life lessons”) worked to mold me into this woman who wasn’t at all what I’d envisioned in my youth. I became quite deliberate and cautious about decision making.
Failures in my personal life conditioned me to, yes, be afraid.
Afraid I’d make MORE incorrect life decisions.
So I played it relatively safe, for more than a decade. I had a corporate level job. Bought a tidy ranch house. Lived in the suburb I grew up in, a mile away from family.
And I listened to the input of my loved ones very intently. They, of course, knew what was best for me.
Life rolled along for a while, delivering all kinds of safe, predictable goodness.
All that changed after my daughter was born, in 2005.
A suddenly single new mom with a new baby, I quickly realized a few things:
1) It is impossible to craft a safe, predictable life. (Trust me, if I couldn’t pull it off? It’s impossible.)
2) I’m going to need to get cracking on funding this girl’s life, braces, birthday parties, piano lessons, college.
3) I’m going to die trying to be an excellent mom AND hold down an on-the-clock corporate job; and
4) There is no time to be scared, woman. Get moving.
For whatever reason? That combination of realizations made it obvious to me that I needed to be an entrepreneur. Call it an epiphany, I don’t know. But I just knew.
So while my daughter was still a baby? I launched a recruiting agency. It was late 2006. I’d convinced the bank to loan me just enough money to live for six months, and that was it. Game on.
By month four? I closed my first deal. I knew I’d make it.
Somewhere around June 2008, a friend introduced me to a couple of dynamo Portland women who had launched a single parenting website. It was an online forum where people congregated to discuss some of the specific issues single parents face, supported one another, and, yes, made friends. I’d pop in every now and again and chat it up with the members.
There was one particular member who was REALLY funny, and charming, and… well…? Lovely.
He lived in Portland.
I lived in Detroit.
It was hopeless from the start but, somewhere along the line… we got this brilliant little idea to meet in person. Did I mention he was lovely? Did I mention how much I love Portland?
We fell in love.
And racked up lots of frequent flier miles, for several months. My family and friends thought I’d lost my mind. Safe Jenny was doing what? Huh?
Eventually, I agreed. This was nuts. We broke up.
Because he had kids in Portland. And mine was in Detroit. And I didn’t feel it was within the realm of my entitlement to take her away from her other parent. Nor did he.
We were sad. I was really sad. I’d lost him AND my beloved Portland.
But I got back to the business of taking care of business. I figured it was over…
…but something just kept pushing me and pushing me and pushing me to not let this go.
In a most ridiculously fortunate turn of events, one day I asked my daughter’s dad if he’d ever consider moving to Portland. I figured there was about a .02% chance that he’d say yes. In part, because he also has an older son from a prior marriage. And that family was also in Detroit.
Shockingly, he said yes. And, even more outside the realm of all I would have ever imagined was possible… His son’s mom and husband said yes, too.
And suddenly a dying dream became a possibility.
A very real, adventure-filled, go-west-my-friend possibility.
But, of course, this is when fear came roaring back in.
Upon announcing this unbelievably Happy! Surprising! Amazing! news to my family, my core support network? They became quite FURIOUS, and convinced I had officially jumped off the deep end. My parents worked very hard to show me the light, presenting me with a long list of all the reasons our real, adventure-filled, go-west-my-friend move would fail.
My sister cried. More than once.
That made me really, really sad. And scared. And I questioned (hard) if I was doing the right thing. I did not want to let these important people down.
Further complicating matters was that I’d decided I was NOT going to tell the lovely Portlander that our crew was westbound. I absolutely didn’t want him to feel responsible, in any way, for this decision. Nor did I want him to think that he was the only reason I was coming.
Because he wasn’t.
By then, I knew that I loved, and belonged in, Portland, Oregon. And I was staring at a once in a lifetime shot to tell my fear to cram it, and to realize my great adventure.
And, dammit. I wanted to go for it.
So in the summer of 2008, with minimal buy-in from some very, very important people, three households of astoundingly cooperative Detroiters made a pilgrimage to Portland.
It was the most exhilarating thing I’ve ever done.
I had absolutely no idea what life would look or feel like once we landed in Oregon, but I knew my life was FINALLY becoming this big, amazing exclamation mark. And that felt amazing.
Since the move…
…My job is flourishing. The recruiting agency continues and, in Spring of 2010, I launched JobJenny.com, a site that helps job seekers, entrepreneurs and dreamers find the peace, love and greenbacks they so deserve.
… I got back together with my Portland lovely, about two minutes after I finally admitted to him that we were en route. We’re newlyweds now. I’m the proud mother and stepmother of three. And a ridiculously proud wife.
… My mom and extended family approve. And love him, too. And see how happy I am. Which makes them happy, I’m pretty darned sure.
…My father sadly, and very unexpectedly, died. I miss him terribly. He never got to see all of the gloriousness that is unfolding as a result of this decision. (I think he’d have been proud.)
My Fear, Exposed lesson from all of this?
1) Live. Live big. Live with all your heart.
2) Don’t let the curveballs scare you into submission, or mold you into less than you are capable of becoming.
3) You do need the key players to OK it, but you do not need the entire world’s permission if your heart says go for it.
And that, is my story. The safe girl from suburbia evolves.
Jenny Foss operates an independent recruiting firm, Ladder Recruiting Group, and is creator of the blog JobJenny.com. Your job search BFF and tough love expert on finding career passion, Jenny recently launched a Ridiculously Awesome Resume Service and offers customized wisdom through her consulting service. You may also find Jenny on Twitter @JobJenny.
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