Why does going down a different path feel like giving up on my dreams?

2024 reflections and other ponderings

TLDR: You spend your whole life dedicated to a career that doesn’t love you back until one day this thing you’ve spent decades crafting becomes irrelevant, and thus, you become irrelevant.

What do you do?

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For the last decade, I’ve been a music publicist. If it sounds like I’m making this my whole personality, I am. Sometimes, I’ve wanted this, but mostly it’s what the industry demands. You are nothing if you’re not all of it. At least, from a consumer standpoint. To my friends, family, clients, and prospective clients, I have to be The PR Girl all the time. The moment I start throwing in personal videos or blogs that aren’t related to this, the world gets confused. They want my commentary on the industry, my free how-to guides, my endless (free) advice. When I deviate from this, my identity shifts. My business suffers.

This has never been more evident than over the last few years. As I’ve stepped back from making it my all-consuming personality, I’ve watched clients fall off. At twenty-two, I was happy to be fully invested, posting about it nonstop, working for $500 up to eighty hours a week. Even at 29, I was content to slide into a comfortable 60 hours a week, lose thousands of dollars on conferences, and give away my knowledge for free because that’s just what you do. I was still enjoying it, and I was still getting something out of it.

But I’m not in my twenties anymore. I’m not even in my early thirties. (ouch) I’m thirty-six, and something in me has broken.

***

If I think about it, all of this started a few years ago. It would be easy to blame it on the pandemic but the truth is I was falling out of favor with my industry before then. I never quite fit in with my peers because being in the industry was something they’d wanted their whole lives. It wasn’t like that for me. Music was the vessel through which I shared my passion, but it wasn’t my passion.

I’ve told the story a million times, but the short version is I started a music blog on a whim after falling in love with a local band. I was so struck by their performance that I felt compelled to talk to them. Being that I couldn’t think of a less creepy way to do this, I started a blog and asked them for an interview. It was 2009, and music blogs were not as ubiquitous as they are today. And so, it worked. One interview led to thousands of interviews, including with household names. I built relationships with major labels, and management companies, and throughout my blog’s ten-year run, I interviewed legends like the Dead Kennedys, the Goo Goo Dolls, and Yellowcard. I got to meet personal favorites like Anberlin, Frank Turner, HIM, and Mayday Parade. Not to mention so many indie bands that were just as deserving of the spotlight but would never see it. I loved it. And you know why? It wasn’t the music. It was the stories. The conversations. The community of it all.

When I got laid off from one of my only 9-5 jobs, I saw it as my sign to strike out on my own. I took a handful of freelance gigs from Craigslist, leaned into my music blog, and eventually thought, why not start a PR company? At the time, music PR companies were cropping up here and there but the market wasn’t flooded. I had the experience from being a journalist and I had the connections. How hard could it be?

It turns out, not that hard. At least, not to a twenty-something with the freedom and ambition to make it on her own. I thrived in building my business. I don’t mean to make light of this—building a business is hard work. But doing so in your twenties when you have hardly any financial or societal obligations and building it any other time in life are two very different things. Within a few months, I could pay my rent. More than that, my work felt like it mattered. I don’t want to downplay this part, because even today, that’s the driving force. Does the work matter? Getting these bands the placements I did made a difference. It moved the needle for them, and for me. I saw progress.

But then, the industry changed. Again and again, and again, until I could no longer keep up, or maybe, more accurately, no longer wanted to. Like any relationship, we started to want different things. While I still felt so rooted in the community, the industry was moving towards something faster, flashier, more urgent than I had interest in. Short form videos, TikTok, virality. Pay-Attention-To-Me-Now media. It wasn’t for me, but now, it’s all my clients wanted. They didn’t want to take the slow path, and I couldn’t blame them. Musicians were blowing up with a 15-second clips on TikTok, getting discovered on YouTube, getting on huge Spotify playlists and hitting 100k streams overnight. It didn’t matter that I knew those things weren’t sustainable, that they didn’t lead to a real fanbase, much less a long term career—my clients and would-be clients saw the flash and the promise of vanity metrics, and they couldn’t help but run towards it. They just wanted all their hard work to pay off. They wanted to be seen. I couldn’t blame them for that.

It just wasn’t anything I could offer.

***

I tried to pivot. So many times I’ve tried to pivot my business into what the industry wants. Adapt or die. I believe in that. I get it. I don’t even blame the industry for changing it’s just, I don’t know how to keep up and stay who I am. Each time was fleeting. I often joke that I sit in the middle of everything and this has plagued my career as well. In everything I’ve done, be it athletics, writing, or starting a business, I’ve always sat somewhere in the middle. Never good enough to succeed, never quite bad enough to quit. I make enough to pay my bills, sort of, but I can’t ever save for that vacation. Distant uncles and friends on Facebook are impressed, but the top-tier clients aren’t interested in hiring me. I’m impressive, if you don’t know enough to understand why I’m really not.

I’m in the middle, always.

***

And so once again, this is where I’ve found myself. But this time, I’m not sure there’s any fixing it. The industry has changed so much over the last few years and I honestly don’t know where my place is. It terrifies me. To have dedicated my entire adult life to something that no longer loves me back, if it ever really did. I’m not cut out for short form videos and quick wins. I’m the slow and steady type. I can get you press, and I can build relationships, and I can work with you on a long-term strategy, but no one wants to implement these things themselves they just want it done for them and now. They want quick fixes at cheap prices. They want Amazon level results from small businesses and soloprenuers. I can’t offer that. I’m not sure I even want to offer that.

I feel untethered.

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So, what’s a girl to do who has dedicated 15+ years to a career that no longer has a place for her?

I honestly don’t know. I’ve been asking myself this question for years. Starting over at thirty six doesn’t feel as exciting as it did in my twenties. It feels daunting, and for the first time in my life, I truly understand the lost cost fallacy because I’ve spent the last three years living in it. I am clinging onto something I once believed in so much because, once upon a time, it worked. It made me happy. It made other people happy. Now, it feels like a ghost of itself. And even still, I don’t want to let it go. Yet, I don’t know how to reinvent myself in a way that feels authentic, and let’s not forget that dirty word, profitable. So, I’m stuck.

***

I have a few ideas for 2025. I’ve always been a big believer in multiple revenue streams, and over the years, I’ve abandoned that. There was a time when I earned income not only from my business directly but also through guest blogs, teaching online or weeknight courses, and other small gigs. Each only a few hundred dollars here and there, but they added up—and more than that, they keep me creatively fulfilled by tapping into different needs. As industries changed (guest blogs became obsolete with the pandemic, and teaching stopped when I moved away from the area) I’ve dropped those side gigs. But maybe it’s time to start looking into them all again. Keeping my business going for those who still value my slower, more strategic approach but also looking to fill my income gaps in other ways, like I once did. Maybe, for now, it can just be part of me and not all of me. Maybe that would be ok?

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I’ve been getting into photography a lot more and even plan to set up a Flytographer account by the end of January. I have a few friends I’ll do test shoots with and then I’ll start charging for services. This is how I started my PR business and I think it’ll work for this too. I’ve also been toying with the idea of a few evergreen things like e-books or PDFs, and maybe even leaning into the content creator angle, if only for fun. I have zero interest in being glued to my social media, but I have to admit something is appealing about the community of it. It always comes back to that doesn’t it?

Anyway, I don’t have any inspiring message to end on. But I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Have you ever changed course? How did you know it was the right decision? Did it feel like giving up, or did it lead to something even better?

Let’s share stories. Your experience might help someone at their own crossroads. (that someone is me, but maybe someone else too).