Every year in December, things slow down at my job. I manage databases for academic research, so we're on the academic calendar. I start to get bored during the down seasons, and I have a temporary crisis where I wonder if I'm in the right career.

I daydream about quitting, doing a 10-week audio engineering certificate at a trade school, and moving to Nashville to work at a start up studio for independent artists. Or moving to Seattle to do audio work for a video game studio. Or moving to London to be an audio technician for the London Symphony Orchestra (a girl can dream!).

I always come out of the funk when the academic calendar restarts and things get busy again. But deep down, year-round, I always wonder if there's a more creative career for me out there instead of academic IT.

I actually do really like my job, the people I work with, and the larger mission of what we're trying to do. I'm contributing to a public good in research services. And I work with other people who believe in that same public good. We're all highly talented, kind, respectful, and collaborative people. When I seriously think about it, I don't want to leave my job.

I'm about to be 8 years into my career, and it'll be 5 years at my current employer soon. I'm accustomed to restarting and rebuilding every couple years--all throughout my 20s, I lived in 3 different states, earned 3 degrees (1 bachelor and 2 masters), I've held 3 internships and 4 jobs (all within my field). So now that I've been at my current employer for almost 5 years, and in my current position for almost 3 years, I think I'm just starting to feel...comfortable. Which I say I want, and deep down I think I truly do want, but I think my nervous system has been trained to get off on the challenge of starting anew and having to rebuild a life somewhere. I've trained my body to rely on cyclical adrenaline, stress, and having to figuring something out for the first time.

During all those transitions and moves and re-builds, I didn't have much time or energy to devote to my creative pursuits. I would dabble in stuff here and there but I would never put consistent effort into it.

So here I am, at the intersection of Stable Career Street and Malnourished Creativity Avenue.

And in that context, it seems normal to wonder if I'm in the "right" career. I love my career, I'm good at it, it's a healthy work environment, it supports a public good, and it pays the bills plus some.

I'm just not fulfilled creatively. That's the piece I'm really missing here. That's why my daydreams involve doing something creative.

I do have ongoing creative projects that I work on from time to time, but I want to be more consistent about them. I just read One tiny thing at a time by What the Fran and it really resonated with me. Every day or once a week, I should take one tiny action on my creative projects. Maybe one day I'll wake up and realize I've built something large enough to fill the void I've created after years of creative neglect.