My mom is fond of spinning a web of hypothetical plans for the magical
day when she finds herself independently wealthy. She says she would volunteer
somewhere very meaningful, hire a trainer and house cleaner, and go to the spa
every week.
These all sound like good plans.
But, I now have my first ever experience of not running from one place to the
next, or one job to the next, and the idea of not working is no longer novel to
me. I do volunteer, and it is somewhere very meaningful. I do work out. I don't go to the spa, but I do give myself a pedicure
every two weeks - not just because it is more economical to do it myself but
because I actually have time for such things now. I will probably never hire anyone
to do my cleaning for me. I cleaned houses to pay for college (among many other
jobs I took on during that time to pay tuition) and it's hard for me to be part
of that dynamic, as a result. Also, let's be honest - I get a lot of
satisfaction out of cleaning things. (Ok, maybe not windows. Or tile. Of any
kind. Or stoves. So, let's say I would hire someone to clean those things, and
those things only, maybe 3 or 4 times a year)
It seems like a cushy lifestyle, right? To sit outside and read, or write, to
have a cool dog to hang out with and to take hikes, to have the luxury to cook,
and keep your house clean, and meet friends for lunch in the middle of the day.
And minus the constant applying, and the stress about where my life is going,
and how far off course I am from my long term plans, this is my life right now
(add borrowed dog to very cool hiking trails, mix well, smile).
But, let's just say it was possible to subtract out the stress, and the constant
mill of applying and fretting about getting a job (I can manage this stress subtraction operation for short
periods - maybe even for 10-12 hours on a really nice Saturday) - not working
carries with it other liabilities. For one, I'm struggling with focus and
concentration because of the special blend of coming
by ADD naturally, stress, and open-ended-ness of this venture. For another, I'm
becoming a secret introvert. I have the utmost respect for introversion, and I
need my alone time to process and analyze - that has always been true even when
I haven't been as good at recognizing it. But now, I'm hearing my extroverted self say,
"I don't want to go to ______ if it's going to be really loud and full of
people," and putting a lot more energy into having one social interaction
at a time. None of this is bad, per se, except that the last time I found
myself in this mode it was because I was profoundly lonely and depressed and
felt stranded in the place I was in. So, I'm watching this carefully to make
sure that I'm not secretly really un-ok. In practical, logistical terms it means
that when I find myself in this mode, personal interaction requires a little
more bandwidth for me. So, interviews are becoming more taxing. It's easy for
me to go, to talk, to be open and engaging and make the connection, but it was
very apparent this week that that took a toll on my reserves. Or rather, it
wasn't apparent, and that's why I passed out on my couch with my clothes on
afterwards . . . and now I am very aware of it.
But all of this pales in comparison to what may be two irrational fears I have
been struck by lately. I have, over the last couple of weeks, been very anxious
about getting a job and then not being able to do it well. This is silly, if I
look at it logically, because the truth is, I was very good at my last job. And,
perhaps even more importantly (and even less humbly if that is possible) I am very good at learning new
tasks quickly, and deeply, and then very quickly creating systems and processes
to manage them and do them with aplomb and efficiency, and shortly thereafter working to connect my tasks and efforts
and communication functionally to any other employees, departments, projects,
so that I have thorough knowledge of how what I am doing affects other operations. I know my strengths (high standards and accountability, communication,
training, work ethic, organization) and my weaknesses (typos, over-committing,
seeming to apply unreasonably high standards to others, getting very attached
to processes). And I'm passionate about doing important things, doing them
well, and doing them for the right reasons. So, when I'm spending all of this
alone-time introspecting, I can usually logically back away from this fallacy.
I can talk myself off that ledge pretty well, though finding myself on it is
unsettling.
More poignant than worrying (without cause, I suspect) that I will get a job
and flop, is the right-now problem of having not worked for nearly 4 months and feeling very dull around the edges. I find myself, for the first time in my life,
sometimes lacking things to say. (For anyone who knows me, please note this may be the ONLY time where I have a dearth of thoughts and words to share.) I say a lot here, but don't want to repeat
myself when talking out loud. And most of the rest of my life seems to exist outside of the the real
world. I feel like I've been quarantined, or in a coma, and am missing out on
what the rest of the world does when it goes about its business. Its funny,
because when I was working, I had placed intense focus on making sure that work
didn't consume me. I actively sought out a life outside of work - running,
working out, friends, singing, writing, and photography. I desperately wanted
to have things that fulfilled me outside of work, and that mattered to me in
ways that couldn't be measured by hours worked, a paycheck, mid-year evaluation,
profitability metrics. But now, my whole life is not working, and I feel I have
gone MIA from the population of people who DO THINGS that matter. I mean,
who cares how much I walked or meditated this week? Or the new recipe I found
and then immediately altered? Or the fact that I had deep thoughts about how to
rearrange the office, and my bedroom? Right - even I don't find those things that interesting and I'm the one contemplating
them.
I sometimes open my mouth to say something about mopping my floor, fixing my
dishwasher (which, if I'm being honest, I was a little proud that I could do),
lightbulbs in my house, and why I used yellow tomatoes in a recipe instead of
red, and there's a warning siren that goes off that screams, "Don't be a
1950's housewife!!" I am nobody's wife, of course, but damn, it would be
easy to drink beer at noon, watch Grey's Anatomy, and let the constellations of
my brain cells form around grocery sales, how to use my slow cooker and when to
use bleach as a household cleaner.
My mom admitted to me that when she graduated high school her aspiration was to
be a wife and mother. I have respect for this, as she did both well, and as it
was a very different time for families, for women, and for how those choices
got made. But, as a dear friend (who, I would add, achieved waiting patiently
for the very thing she was internally very impatient to get) who recently had
her first child said to me, "I love this baby soooo much AND I'm not a stay at home mom." It wasn't, I love my child BUT. It was both
things, joined conditionally by AND. I am not a mother, nor wife, but I can say
this - I love my new found peace and contentment and the rightness with myself
and clear vision of what I want and how I think I can contribute. I love it so much, AND
even if I were able, it would not be ok with me to stay home without a greater
purpose for too much longer than I already have.
I want to have stories, I want to do difficult things, I want to fail and get
better at something, I want to try and fit a dentist appointment into a busy
week of meetings, I want to point to results at the end of the year or quarter
or whatever and know what part I had in them, I want to make a to do list of
tasks that relate to tasks I can't accomplish in this house with a pot, pan,
cutting board, or mop. I even want to complain about traffic or a commute or a
roadblock to achieving something in my office because this would mean I was
back in the world doing things, earning my happy hour in Friday, thinking about
how to get better at something, how to do more, how to be of use.
I never wanted to stay home. In my mind, if I was ever going to stay home it
would be for my child, and it would have a pre-determined end point, a light at
the end of the tunnel. I feel now like I am at the end of the tunnel, and
waiting expectantly for that light to come on.
It's time for me to find my way out of this labyrinth and see "what's
next" but I'm not sure this gets to happen on my schedule. So, I'm trying
to do the things that work to keep me feeling connected to the rest of the
world, and trying to dream up projects and pursuits that keep me from getting
too boring to stand even myself. This is where it would be GREAT NEWS to be
independently wealthy because then I'd have the resources to take on whatever
seemed most engaging to me - skydiving, digital photo editing, class on how to
make sushi, cello lessons, done, done, check, check. But I've also found, in
past lives, that working through and past limitations can sometimes unearth
previously unrealized creativity. (The first time I consciously experienced
this was when I wanted to have my lab over for dinner and found out that one
member was vegetarian and allergic to: onions, garlic, dairy, eggs, and citrus.
At first I thought, "what in the WORLD could I make that isn't completely
bland without any of those ingredients?" And then I came up with a killer
menu. ) So, I'm trying to see this as a stellar opportunity to be creative
about how I want to be creative - read more about meditation, take some free
yoga, train for a 5k that I might never race, draw sketches of how I could rearrange and redecorate my
house, take free online software tutorials, think about what I would give a TED
talk on, document gluten free recipes, write a zombie story, are all on the
list of potential projects. Interesting other suggestions, please feel free to
apply as comments to this post. :)
And let us all bow our heads an pray that I do not, someday, write a post about
mopping my floors.
