There’s a vulture in Robin Hood who does his rounds at night, and every hour he announces that all is good. It’s one of my favourite lines in any Disney movie, and the reason is what happens right after: Robin shows up and saves the day.
I think about it a lot, because it’s 1 am, I’m awake, and nobody is coming to save the day.
What my brain does when I’m alone
When I’m alone at home, my brain goes in every direction at once. A few days ago my therapist asked if I’m okay staying alone with myself. I said yes. Then I thought about it for a while, and I think I lied. Maybe not completely. Maybe partially.
So here I am, awake, with a laptop, doing what I always do.
The plate
Whenever I feel like I’m not doing enough, I add something to my plate. Right now the plate has:
helping a friend with the digital side of her business
sending applications, around 18 a month, internships included
a master’s in marketing and digital communication
building my own thing, Ideas to Action, and Blunt Spoon Society (a brand that started as a joke)
posting about all of it, in public, hoping someone notices
I used to think this was a problem. Now I think it’s a pattern, and I’m still deciding whether it’s a good one. It does have one logic: none of it is random. Every piece connects to the same question: how I make a living in a city I love, doing work I’m actually good at.
So what am I?
For a while I told people I didn’t want to work in marketing anymore. Then one day I stopped lying to myself: girl, you’re a marketer, whether you like it or not.
But a specific kind. I’m not a specialist. I’m a conceptual marketer: I create the idea, and then someone else needs to build it. I’m not a designer, and I’m not a videographer. My creativity is the kind that solves problems.
Then I remember I’m also trying to sell what I do, which makes me a salesperson. Then another day I’m a project manager, ready to plan and deliver, and then I remember that in Zürich, project managers are usually engineers, and I’m the girl from southern Italy who has to build her own path with what she has.
So which one is it? Marketer, salesperson, project manager? I know that if I have to describe myself with one word there isn’t one that fits me. And the problem is that the job market wants me to pick one, and my whole life has been about doing several things at once.
What I’ve learned so far
Some weeks ago I posted a story on LinkedIn, and it reached more people than anything I’ve written on purpose. I’m still not sure what that means. It might mean that people like honesty. It might just mean that the algorithm had a good day.
Here’s what I’m sure of:
Nobody is coming to rescue me, and that’s fine. It means I get to decide what happens next.
Working a lot is not the same as working on the right thing, and I’m learning to tell the difference.
Being alone with my own thoughts is a skill, and I’m clearly still practising it.
Talking about it, even badly, even at 1 am, helps more than pretending everything is under control.
And the vulture?
He still announces that all is good every hour, and I’ve decided to take him seriously because it’s the thing I tell myself, too. It’s not the truth, but it’s something I’m working towards, one hour at a time.
1 o’clock and all is (s)well
