I was trying to save, but it was slow going since spin instructors and coffee baristas didn’t exactly make a livable wage. I supplemented my income with freelance writing assignments. The experience was good for building my portfolio, but I worked best with external accountability. My dream was to secure a full-time journalist job, writing uplifting and engaging lifestyle stories, not submitting proposals to create dry content about household appliances. Additionally, many of the best freelance writing sites charged fees, took a portion of your earnings, or both. It was often counterproductive. Until I could catch my big break, I was grateful for rent-free living and a mother with whom I got along famously and who was in no rush to kick me out. This placed me at the back of the pack in terms of evolving into a full-fledged adult, but my time would come. Eventually.

Now, alone on the couch with sole custody of the remote, I switched the channel to a Million Dollar Listing New York marathon on Bravo. It would be easy to use the show as an escape in the same way I watched Hallmark movies—to engulf myself in a world so foreign to my own and play “what if.” But it wouldn’t serve my career or further my goal of financial independence. Instead, I kept the show on in the background while I checked my regular sites for new freelance-writing job postings. Monitoring these platforms took more time than I typically had, so my goal of submitting daily often dwindled to weekly. But you had to move fast, because open slots were snatched up quick.

On the ProBlogger site, I skipped over a listing for a freelance wedding blogger. A passion for weddings was the top requirement, and based on my experience tonight, I hadn’t even mastered the art of the first date. Instead, I kept scrolling until I found a posting by a small business seeking a writer/researcher for a coffee brand. They specifically sought someone with related experience, like a barista. Bingo. I submitted the online application, attaching my writing samples, closed down my computer, and gave Million Dollar Listing my full attention. I’d earned it.

I figured I’d watch an episode or two before turning in, but the effects of the day wore me down, and I found myself dozing off on the couch still wearing my dress and in full makeup. “Never go to sleep in your makeup!” Okay, Mom! She hadn’t actually said this—tonight anyway—but it was one of the many lessons she’d ingrained in me growing up: the gospel of Valerie Gellar.