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.
It's hard to remember what my personality is outside of work when it feels like all I do is work. I am inclined toward constant productivity - watch me carry this chip (boulder) on my shoulder, balancing it as I navigate 18 hours of appointments. Minimal travel time (never enough) and eating on the road (who has time for breaks?), arriving breathless and flushed, unable to slow down at night to sleep. Waking up too late, too ill rested, but doing it again 5, 6 days a week. Crash. Self-Loathing Sunday spent in bed scrolling Facebook. Too much to do to actually feel rested. Start it over on Monday.
I don't make enough to pay my bills, even when I'm scraping together more appointments, more students, praying no one cancels. I feel my body deteriorating, but that happens when you ignore the signs. Why prioritize caring for a body that never fit? I need to figure out what's happening with it, but insurance is beyond my means. I am doing well, overall, without the serotonin and norepinephrine supplements to manage my moods. I cannot see beyond this moment, whatever moment I'm in. But I still squint through the fog of anxiety and tension, hoping to see my path or find some meaning.
Instead, I find projections of today's fears. I know that the overdrafts and pressure and fear are all temporary. They are blips on the radar and I will recover. I always recover. I am resourceful and blessed with a strong, supportive network. I just need to remember that I am not the sum of my failures, but that is the only list that lives in my mind. I have written ones scattered about - mindfulness, thankfulness, journals updated as often as my blogs, platitudes, philosophy. Sometimes they make me smile. More often, they make me roll my eyes and sob. Why can't I believe the things I say about me? Why can't I believe the things that others say about me?
The only reason any of this matters is because I am so obsessed with defining myself. If I don't define myself, I will melt away into the background, forgotten. I loathed my sharp edges, hard won and protective, and I wore them away until I was afraid to make a stand. Now, I need to find my file, again. I need to shape myself deliberately. I am no longer my father's child.
Ugh. It always comes back to that, doesn't it.
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.
It's hard to remember what my personality is outside of work when it feels like all I do is work. I am inclined toward constant productivity - watch me carry this chip (boulder) on my shoulder, balancing it as I navigate 18 hours of appointments. Minimal travel time (never enough) and eating on the road (who has time for breaks?), arriving breathless and flushed, unable to slow down at night to sleep. Waking up too late, too ill rested, but doing it again 5, 6 days a week. Crash. Self-Loathing Sunday spent in bed scrolling Facebook. Too much to do to actually feel rested. Start it over on Monday.
I don't make enough to pay my bills, even when I'm scraping together more appointments, more students, praying no one cancels. I feel my body deteriorating, but that happens when you ignore the signs. Why prioritize caring for a body that never fit? I need to figure out what's happening with it, but insurance is beyond my means. I am doing well, overall, without the serotonin and norepinephrine supplements to manage my moods. I cannot see beyond this moment, whatever moment I'm in. But I still squint through the fog of anxiety and tension, hoping to see my path or find some meaning.
Instead, I find projections of today's fears. I know that the overdrafts and pressure and fear are all temporary. They are blips on the radar and I will recover. I always recover. I am resourceful and blessed with a strong, supportive network. I just need to remember that I am not the sum of my failures, but that is the only list that lives in my mind. I have written ones scattered about - mindfulness, thankfulness, journals updated as often as my blogs, platitudes, philosophy. Sometimes they make me smile. More often, they make me roll my eyes and sob. Why can't I believe the things I say about me? Why can't I believe the things that others say about me?
The only reason any of this matters is because I am so obsessed with defining myself. If I don't define myself, I will melt away into the background, forgotten. I loathed my sharp edges, hard won and protective, and I wore them away until I was afraid to make a stand. Now, I need to find my file, again. I need to shape myself deliberately. I am no longer my father's child.
Ugh. It always comes back to that, doesn't it.
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