How My 2023 Went

In this post:

• I had a career-changing lightbulb moment

• Bike adventures!

A Sad Beginning

This year started off on a very sad note. I had to say goodbye to my cat Jelly who got very sick early in the year. She'd been my stalwart companion for 12 years. My sweet and clever girl. It was heartbreaking to have to say goodbye. 

A Discovery

To distract from my grief, I threw myself into work. As a Type A does. In February, I took a short online course on business finance as part of my professional development routine. When you’re a freelancer, you’re de facto running a business (whether you like it or not) and you need to wear all the hats. Most of which you’re not qualified to wear. Business finance was one area that I needed to work on, as I was foggy on how to even read a financial statement. 

A Big Decision

Around this time, I was also realizing that I was 110% done with being a freelance illustrator. I've always low-key hated it because it was intellectually boring (I fell into it out of necessity and got trapped in it due to some sort of competency curse. Cinda Canning was right— never be too good at a job you don’t want to keep doing.) My brain is a Hungry Hungry Hippo, and it needs food of a technical and analytical nature. Illustrating offered none of that and everything I hated— ambiguity, uncertain metrics of success, and feelings.

Accounting, on the other hand, had everything that I didn't realize I was looking for— an incredibly structured process with very clear answers (an equation balances or it doesn’t.)

The logical path seemed to be the self-starter DIY approach: continue building out my online certifications and work my way up from lower-level bookkeeping positions. But it didn’t take much job searching to notice that a relevant degree was a nonnegotiable requirement the higher up you go.

I was reluctant to even entertain the idea of going back to school. I’m 42. Technically middle-aged! And in this time of rapidly rising interest rates and a national student loan debt crisis constantly making headlines, getting a second degree felt like the dumbest of dumb ideas.

But still. In the back of my mind, two ideas had been swimming around lazily and pestering me with their whispers for some time: “I wish I did college differently,” lamented one. “Do I… maybe want to go to business school??” giggled the other. I’d been consuming a large amount of business books and podcasts over the past few years and my appetite for it seemed endless.

I thought I’d shut those voices up by taking a look at the cost and time that going back to school would involve. Experience some sticker shock. Go take a nap and come up with a plan B.

Ok let’s see here…Portland State University offers a two-year post-bac accounting certificate program that’s considered by employers to be the equivalent of a full degree. Just two years, huh? Hmmm.

"Nationally ranked business school....flexible format...more than 800 internships and jobs posted...Accounting Mentor Program.... outstanding industry connections...excellent hiring record....tons of recruitment from local and national businesses..." HMMM.

I wasn’t prepared to start applying for internships right away since I was just starting my certificate, but they really push you into getting on top of this 1.5 years in advance of graduation.

I went to all the events and talked to a ton of firms and industry reps to get an idea of what the various jobs were like. I didn’t plan on making a serious attempt yet- maybe next fall. But I did apply to the one local firm that is known as “the cool kids” of all the local accounting firms. I really like their stats on diversity and being majority women-owned.

I ended up moving through the screening interviews, and it was at my second interview that things shifted. I went in thinking it would be good practice for next year’s internship effort. I walked out thinking, “shit, I actually really want this.” I had hit it off spectacularly with my interviewers, and their questions for me made me realize how aligned their approach and values were with my own.

During this first month of the fall quarter I also ended up getting a very part-time, fully remote student job in the school's finance department, doing accounts payable. I really wanted at least one finance-related thing on my resume, which kept looking more and more out of left field (my first degree was in Poly-Sci, and I’d worked as an illustrator for over ten years. Hi, just let this Herlihy boy do your finance stuff!)

I also got the internship! And the best part is that these summer internships are offered with the expectation of a full offer at the end. The idea of joining this firm after graduation made me giddy with joy and I was literally smiling for days.

Bike Adventures

The other exciting thing that happened in 2023 was that I embarked on a big ol’ journey of discovering bike riding. I hadn’t been on a bike since a big wreck some 30 years ago. But I saw that REI was offering Intro to Mountain Biking courses in the spring, so I decided to give it a try. I loved it! But also, it was a bit challenging. Even though I do strength-training twice a week, it turns out that I still have some very weak-ass legs.

I kept at it, though. In my usual way of running tests to gauge viability, I started renting a bike every weekend and going on an adventure ride in the woods to test my enjoyment of it. Would it hold? Would it peter out?