pulling a geographic.

(Initially posted on Facebook, 8/22/10.)

I have been trying to write this for weeks now. In fact, I can’t believe it’s been over a month since I first hinted at what I’m about to do. But I want to try to tell you about it. Finally!

At the moment, I am sitting in a foldout bed in a hotel room in Seattle. My parents are sleeping about four feet away from me. (Don’t ask. Usually I insist on my own room, seeing as I have been an actual adult for many many years now, it didn’t happen this time. And seeing as how I am hours away from embarking on a seven-day cruise to Alaska courtesy of said parents, I’m not really in a position to whine.)

I’ve also had a couple of vodka tonics tonight. So factor that in, and please forgive the lack of eloquence.

“Pulling a geographic” is a phrase I first heard about a week ago in a podcast, and then again about two days later in a review for “Eat, Pray, Love.” That always happens when you learn something new, doesn’t it? And it just about bowled me over, that phrase, because although it’s not exactly what I’m about to do, it sort of is. Sort of.

I have been doing a lot of thinking over the past six months. That happens when you get fired. I’ve been thinking a lot about what I want to do. Honestly, most of my thinking has been about what I DON’T want to do.

I don’t want to be a lawyer anymore. I don’t want to work in a law firm anymore. I don’t want to get up, put on black pants and a sweater, get on a bus, get on a train, walk into a downtown building, swipe a badge, and sit in a cubicle anymore. And I don’t want to work for a jackass ever, ever again. I’ve done all of that, and I’m done with it. The idea of going back to that life has become almost impossible for me to contemplate, like it has moved into the realm of absurdity.

So I am going to do something completely different. Really, truly, entirely different. I’m going to become a tour director.

When you sign up for package travel, a tour director is the person who manages the day-to-day details of the trip. The tour company books the hotels, arranges the day trips, and hires the drivers, basically makes all the arrangements in advance. The tour director is then responsible for making sure that the travelers actually get where they’re going. It’s a 24/7 job while you’re on the trip, there is no doubt about that. The work is hard, but the rewards are unbelievable: you are paid to see the world.

In October, I’ll be attending a program at the International Tour Management Institute in San Francisco. For 15 straight days, I’ll be learning all there is to know about tour directing. We go to the airport to learn about customs and immigration. We go on a couple of overnight trips to shadow tour directors in action. We learn about the psychology of group travel and how to deal with pain-in-the-ass customers. When it’s over, ITMI works with the graduates to determine which tour companies best fit the kind of travel they want to do, and makes some initial introductions to the people responsible for hiring tour directors.

It is a profound and radical change of course for me. For ten years, I tried to be a lawyer, and I never did a very good job of it. That isn’t self-deprecation; it’s fact. I now believe that I have been spending a long time trying to force myself into a world where I simply do not belong. Many smart, talented people DO belong there. There’s nothing wrong with that world. But maybe, just maybe, it’s not actually for me.

Maybe I belong in an area where I get to work for myself. Where I can have control over what I do. Where there are writing possibilities at every turn, where I am constantly learning and constantly teaching. Where I can work hard, harder than I ever have, but reap the rewards myself, rather than making rich white men richer and having my soul sucked out of my eye sockets in the process.

Where I don’t have to win a goddamn basketball pool to get a stamp in my passport.

It is change. It is big, huge, colossal change, to such an extent as I have never changed in my entire life. It’s scary, but a good kind of scary. The kind that dares you to have some faith in yourself, that dares you to jump without being 100% certain of where you’re going to land. I’ve never taken that kind of risk before, and you know what? It’s about freaking time.

The few people I have shared this with already have been extraordinary in their support. No one seems to think I’m crazy, so that’s reassuring. In fact, the support of my friends and family has been kind of amazing, and as trite as it sounds, I’d never be able to pursue this without them, the little crowd in my corner, encouraging me to move forward, making me believe I can actually do this.

So that’s where I am these days. There are many details I have to work out, obviously, and I’ll know a lot more once I finish the program in October, but I am more excited about the future than I have been in a very, VERY long time. Obviously I’ll keep you posted along the way, but in the meantime, if you have taken the time to read all of this, then you are clearly a friend I am most grateful to have, and I thank you.

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