I had the luxury of sitting on my back porch this morning, watching my dogs sniff around the yard and the birds feast on the fresh suet I left for them in the feeder. There are no pings from my phone in the morning, no email alerts - it’s just me, coffee and the dogs. It’s quiet. I can sleep in if I want, but more often than not, I’m up around 6:30am and sitting on the porch, just being still. It’s heavenly.

Last night, while cleaning out my computer files, I stumbled across this image that perfectly sums up my former life as an assistant.

This blurry selfie was taken at the airport in Paris, midway through an insane, multi-country excursion that took years off my life.

As it always seemed to happen, I was tasked with planning a very, very short notice, very intricate trip to Europe. It involved multiple countries, multiple planes/hotels/helicopters/contingency plans in case the weather was terrible (which of course it was). I had worked day and night to get the trip in place, then flew to France to advance the group and make sure everything was settled on the ground. While they explored and dined at Chateaus on special menus I had planned for them to allow for dietary restrictions and picky eating, I was straightening hotel rooms, frantically calling the next venue to make sure everything was prepared for their arrival. I’d be constantly on the phone with security, pilots, drivers, hotel concierge, the office back in the states. I had camped out in the lobby of the luxury hotel where the guests were staying (I was around the corner in a budget motel) and earned a LOT of side-eyed glances from the well-heeled guests due my remote office set-up. But pride goes out the window when you’re doing this kind of work. Who cares if people stare at your backpack AND a giant diaper bag that doubled as your bosses toiletry kit/computer bag- you gotta do what you gotta do to make shit happen. The hotel staff were incredibly nice and would let me go to the staff area to get a fresh espresso at 4:30am since nothing else was open. I felt equal parts mortified and proud of the amount of work I was putting in to make this trip successful. It was also my job - what they paid me to do.

At the point when that photo was taken, I had been operating on about 5 hours of sleep over the 3 days I was in France. The weather had taken a turn and I had a contingency plan in place, but of course somehow the pissing rain and wind had become my fault. Like I had used my witchcraft to make the trip a little less fun for them all, just to be a pain in their ass. The weather became my failure and from that point on, everything was wrong. Up was down and black was white. Everyone else had taken the jet to the next destination, but I was stuck hauling the extra luggage on a commercial flight (payment for my weather snafu). It was late, I was beyond tired and trying to prep for the next leg of the trip, knowing now they would hate whatever was planned, when my boss texted saying he wanted to change the entire itinerary. The itinerary that was 10 pages long and look a team of people to pull off due to all the logistics. I had zero cell reception in the terminal and I was trying to handle this all via patchy texting through a shitty wifi hot-spot. Everyone was angry at me. Everyone. I was working my ass off and nothing seemed to matter and at that point I was seriously considering missing my flight and just living in that terminal forever. I’d fucking eat macaroons, befriend the bartenders and shower in the sink of the ladies room. It sounded so much better than facing my reality upon landing at the next destination. I realized my family had no idea where I currently was or what flight I was taking - I assumed the plane would go down and they’d never ID my body after it was charred beyond recognition. I remember this night so clearly because the stress I felt in that moment felt like it would never, ever go away. Every angry ping from my phone caused my blood pressure to spike and me to question all the life choices that had lead me to that moment.

Of course the trip and all of the stress did eventually resolve itself (though I must admit, with quite a bit of drama and some Waiting to Exhale-esque behavior on my part). But if you asked anyone who was on that excursion, I guarantee they’d say it was a great time. Because all the stress and drama was squarely on my shoulders. It was a Hell of my own making.

But shouldn't that have been my ‘a-ha’ moment - the exact point in time when I realized that this shit was for the birds and I had talent and experience that was better than melting down in various airports all over Europe? It should have been, but how could it when I was confronted with situations like that over and over and over again. The thing about being an assistant (at least in my experience) - is that these kinds of crises happened EVERY SINGLE DAY. Be it intricate travel, scheduling issues, scripts being bound incorrectly, the wrong coffee or clothes not back from the cleaners - every day presented some sort of issue that was deemed a crisis by either your boss, or the production, or the household staff, or the agent, and on and on and on and on. Whatever “it” was became THE most important thing that had ever happened and that nothing would ever be right in the world again until it was resolved. Every stressful day blurs into the next and before you know it, years have passed. And that was the job - my job. And because I took pride in being able to fix things, and didn't want to look like a quitter, I soldiered on, waaaaay past the point of no return. And that’s on me. Not my bosses. Not my coworkers. Me.

So, when I woke up this morning feeling a little overwhelmed with the fact I imploded my life - looking at this photo reminds me of why I’m here. That person in the photo never had the luxury to sit on the porch listening to the leaves fall from the trees. To watch her dogs get to finally play in a backyard and bask in the fall sunshine. Or to let her cell battery die and not care.

Sure, last night I heard a Fisher Cat scream and almost had a stroke. And I’m scared my house might be haunted. And I worry I won’t make any friends here that aren’t strange hill-people who want to use my skin for a suit. But that just comes with the territory, I suppose. I’m just very, very thankful to be on my porch instead of in an airport having a meltdown right now. I’m thankful I figured out my worth. And I’m thankful I told my former life to fuck off.