#career-uncertainty

#career-uncertainty

In March 2023, she noted in her diary that potential acting jobs were few and far between, if at all really. She rarely heard from her agent, and she didn't want to get in touch with him just to hear how different the business has become, how they just aren't looking for a woman my age, with my stereotyped abilities. As an actor, and one who had been particularly typecast, she was used to rejection, she wrote, but this is getting a little scary.

The Marines are a 24-hour responsibility. Once you commit, your personal ambitions take a backseat. Eventually, I reached a point where I wanted to explore those ambitions - specifically, entrepreneurship - while I was still young enough to act on them. I made the decision to leave the service during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic - even though the civilian job market felt uncertain, and many encouraged me to stay. But retired service members who had built businesses offered a different message. They helped me realize that the military equips people with more transferable skills than they often think. The transition resources on base reinforced that point, so I felt ready to move on.