Defining a Life
I have spent a lot of my life trying to define what kind of life I want to live, as if pasting words to my actions gives them meaning. I do that with so many things - my identity, my relationships, my purpose. I knew what I wanted to do from the time I could talk. I spent 20 years of my life working toward teaching high school. Crashed. Spent 10 years working toward and in teaching university. Crashed. I've spent the last three years spinning without direction, without a classroom or a whiteboard at the end of the tunnel. I'm gaining some footing as an office manger, tutor, organizer. Significantly less as a writer. It's hard to have a voice when I've centered my identity around Teacher. I'm learning and integrating that it hasn't changed - just shifted from my core and became a limb or a subtitle. I am constantly defining myself by my work. A friend told me that's "internalized capitalism" and I sometimes worry that's my entire personality.