SECURITY IN INSECURITY
by DEVIN PARRISH
Turning in my ID badge made it official. It was the last step to end my employment as a TV journalist.
I said goodbye to my newly former coworkers and the scattered line of security officers who’d let me inside the CNN building five days a week for more than 10 years. Usually, after a long day of writing or editing nonstop breaking news, I’d be speed walking across the pedestrian bridge to the parking lot to get out of there.
But on this beautiful spring Tuesday I took my time, feeling the sun on my skin as traffic drove under me. I was a woman in my 30’s who had experienced the death of my mother, survived a tornado in downtown Atlanta and an earthquake in Hosaena (Hosanna), Ethiopia but had also found and cultivated a loving familial community of friends. It was a mismatched bookend to my inaugural walk as an ambitious writer a year out of college who moved to Atlanta alone and knew no one. When I pulled off the property to drive one of my favorite side-street routes home, I sobbed. Mourning had begun. So did a new normal of unpredictability.
I dedicated the next couple months to getting rest, trying to sleep until I woke up. My sleeping patterns were off after years of working overnights to feed the 24-hour news cycle. I’d also planned a summer road trip to visit friends and family. But there was no plan after that and no new job lined up. I hadn’t thought that far ahead. I figured I would just live off my savings and get another job before my money ran out. I figured wrong.
The time between deciding to leave CNN and actually leaving was about six months but the desire was planted years before. In 2009, a memoir I wrote about my relationship with my mom was published. I did a grassroots book tour. I thought the book would get optioned for a movie and I’d be on easy street. Didn’t happen. I stayed put. I took a life-changing mission trip to Ethiopia in the fall of 2011. Less than three months after returning from that trip, I gave my resignation. The last practical thing I did was give a four-month notice so I could pay off everything and the only debt I had was my mortgage.
For most of my adult life up to that point I’d worked so hard at making a living–even through undergrad where, by my junior year, I was working three jobs. I was exhausted. At the start of 2011, I asked God to open a door for me to make a life: to have the time to make and enjoy a good meal; travel more; build on my tremendous friendships; to love writing again; to fall in love. This prayer would be answered in ways I never expected.
First, the process of preparing me to receive the answer was activated. It got harder for me to live comfortably in the routine of working 40 hours a week, doing stuff on my days off, and taking vacation days here and there. When my alarm would go off at two a.m., I would stare at the ceiling, dreading the day ahead. This drudgery dragged on for months until I told my bosses my last day would be May 29, 2012. I now had something to look forward to and it helped me finish well.
By the end of 2012, I was putting the finishing touches on a one-act stage comedy I’d started writing the year before. I talked to a producer friend of mine about it and nervously let her read it. She offered to help me put it on and by the summer of 2013 my play was being performed at a small theater outside Atlanta. Then my cousin who lives in Tallahassee brought it there.
The following year was one of the toughest of my life. I was betrayed by a very close friend, the man I was dating broke my heart, and I was broke. My play had stalled and nothing was coming from all the jobs I’d applied for. At one particularly low point, I was eating a meal made up of everything edible that was left in my cabinets and refrigerator which I ate everyday for about a week until it ran out. There was barely a drop of gas in my car, maybe enough to make it to a gas station. I was walking to two nearby libraries to check out books and DVDs for free entertainment. As hard as it was to fully comprehend in the midst of all my lack, I was experiencing abundant life. My prayer was being answered: that meal I’d prepared with all the odds and ends in my kitchen was delicious; I visited dear friends in Florida and Indiana, went on a girls’ trip to the Blue Ridge mountains; a play I’d lovingly written was performed in two states; and I did fall in love despite the relationship’s shoddy ending.
I lost my condo to foreclosure in 2015 which proved to be a transitional year. I was in the middle of taking my play to my birthplace of Cincinnati at the encouragement of my father. After driving there to hold auditions, I drove back to Atlanta, gave away everything except what could fit in my car, left a couple things at my friends’ house, and drove back up I-75 North, a homeless playwright.
The play had a good run in the Cincinnati-area and when it was over, my Uncle Bill invited me to stay with him and my Aunt Supat in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. They live not too far from where I went to college. Their home and that community was a much-needed respite. I spent five months having deep conversations with Uncle Bill by the fire pit, going to yoga with Aunt Supat and enjoying her home-cooked Thai food. When she went to Thailand for several weeks to visit her family, I had fun cooking for Uncle Bill and taking care of their pet chihuahua, Popeye. I also reconnected with a couple folks from my college days and made some new friends.
The following year, I decided to move back to Cincinnati and live there for the first time in my adult life. My parents and I moved a lot when I was a child with a few pit stops in Cincinnati. I never felt like I fit in there, but something was calling me back. There was an unfinished part of grieving my mom that I needed to complete. I also needed to reunite with my older siblings and live my grown life in front of them.
Shortly after making up my mind to relocate to Cincinnati, I got a really cool job at an e-learning company but the experience was short-lived. I got laid off after working there a little more than a year.
So, here I am in the middle of yet another round of fits and starts. On a material level it looks like leaving CNN was the worst possible decision that set off six years of failure, hardship, and loss. That’s a risk I took when I abandoned safety for adventure. I still believe I chose the better thing.