Losing Me, Finding Me

I was going to shut this blog down for good a few weeks ago.

I realized that the readership I once had doesn't seem as enthusiastic about reading my blog posts. When I first started this blog, I would get comments and messages saying that my words resonated with people. People would share their innermost thoughts and feelings with me, telling me they felt understood, and in those moments I realized that my words had the power to heal. But they don't seem to have the same effect these days.

I've written about happiness, love, feminism, racism, my students - anything I have been passionate about. And I often share with the understanding that I am taking a risk by saying too much, giving too much away, just BEING TOO MUCH. There have been times that I've sobbed while writing and times when I've felt triumphant and even other-worldly, as if someone were writing through me.

Not so much lately.

I've been struggling with pretty much everything in my life. Nothing has been easy in the past year since I uprooted myself from a stable job and a place where I was accepted and loved as is, and came to this new place where no one knows me and no one seems to care how "amazing" I used to be. I am in a place where authenticity is not something to be achieved, because it is not understood as a concept. As much I am used to change and growth, I am in a place where people "are who they are" and I should not "expect them to change." It's like hitting brick walls and expecting them to bounce back. There's no other way to describe my experience so far. As a result, I have been expending energy becoming defensive, protected, and guarded in every relationship. I have become everything I've worked so hard to let go of, everything I told the young women in my life not to be. I let life beat me.

I know this because last week I was talking with one of the young professionals I supervise, and as I was looking for a way to resolve a problem, I decided that taking myself out of it would demonstrate that my ego was not as important as helping the team to run well. She said something to the effect of, "You are saying you are being humble in this instance, but you really sound defeated." Finally, someone truly understood my experience as of late, and I could feel the entire universe releasing a long-held, pent-up breath. My spirit told me, "You've lost who you really are."

Two weeks ago, I met a man with whom I'd been corresponding through a dating site and phone conversations. It wasn't easy at first, as he continues to remind me. "Remember when you wouldn't return my texts for four hours? When you would tell me specific times to call you and you wouldn't pick up?" What he knew, without me saying it, was that in those initial calls or texts, I was finding reasons not to engage. I didn't want to try - I had tried before, and it didn't work out. I had tried, and gotten so unbelievably hurt and betrayed that, even though I wanted to try again, I didn't want to try again. I got super defensive and refused to acknowledge those texts and calls. Then we had a snow day, and he called while I was doing nothing. I just picked up because, in that moment, I had no reason not to. The first words out of his mouth were, "Let me ask you this: Do you WANT a relationship?" He proceeded to tell me exactly how he felt about my antics, and somehow, rather than hang up on him for being so aggressive, I listened. And we talked. And somehow, two hours had gone by. Two hours of my precious time, that is usually planned. I plan phone conversations, okay? And at the end of those two hours, we got off the phone much in the same way teenagers do. "I'm really going to say goodbye now, okay? I'm really going to hang up." As I hung up, I breathed a sigh of surprise and relief, the universe sighing and smiling with me.

I talked to him again later that night after having cleaned my car off and getting back upstairs feeling a little sore. He told me to run a hot bath, get some candles and a glass of wine, and to just relax. I did it simply because he told me to, and I was so relaxed that I slept like a baby and felt as if I had given something to myself that I had not in such a long time: the gift of self-care. I don't know why I had not ever thought to pamper myself in that way. Yes, the bath was relaxing, but I left that experience with more than loosened muscles; I left feeling valued and appreciated by ME.

Photo Credit: M. Gerade

In the past two short weeks, this man has somehow reminded me that being spontaneous is a good thing, that everything doesn't have to be planned, that any time we are able to, we should make the time to see each other, and no matter what we do or for how little time it may be, there is value in those moments. He frequently remarks that he likes me - the "conservative" me that he first met through online photos, our first conversations, our first date - and the me who has opened up and accepted to go on this adventure with him. He believes that I have grown in such a short amount of time, but what he doesn't know is that who he sees now is really me. Being guarded and evasive was my defense mechanism, but he knocked that wall down as soon as possible to get to who I really am, a loving, compassionate, funny person who is willing to stop planning and start living. Again.

I have found me again. And this is why I write this right now, regardless of who reads. Because this is a part of who I really am. I am creative. I am expressive. I am, sometimes, too much. And I love it. I love ME.

A New State (Get Yours)

Courtesy of my lovely friend and former student, Mah-G, a magical human being. :-)

State commonly refers to… the present condition of a system or entity…
(Courtesy of everyone's friend, Wikipedia.)

I just started a new job in a new state last week.

Over the past six months, I'd written a few blog posts about my decision to leave the job I'd had for almost seven years and move to a different state (which you can read here, here, and here, if you are so inclined).  In those posts, I touched on some of the practical aspects of unemployment, but mostly, I discussed the things I was learning throughout that part of my life's journey.  I thought that once I found employment, I would write a post about the end of that process, but what I find interesting is that I don't feel like there is an "end" to write about, besides saying, "I got a job" after almost six months of being unemployed.

So, yes, I got a job, and I started it last week.  I moved to a new apartment in a new state.  But that's not the end of the story.

I keep getting asked the question, "How is your new job?" And to be honest, I don't have a great answer. So far, so good, is the best answer I can give.  I like the people, and I like that my schedule is flexible and that I can wear jeans on Fridays (Yay!). I like that my new supervisor seems to be someone who will help me grow professionally and who is a down to earth, confident woman of color with no apparent ego issues (More yay!). Other than that, there isn't much I can say. I'm thankful to be employed.

While part of the reason why I left my previous job was because it was really just time to go, another reason was because my spirit and soul were not being fed in that region of the state (or country, but go with me here).  I needed to leave from that place because nothing was changing around me, and everything within me was screaming for change.  I felt as if I was dying inside, and honestly, I don't know if I ever didn't feel that way for the thirteen years I was there, I think I just tried my best to deal with the situation I was in.

State commonly refers to… the present condition of a system or entity…

So yes, I took the plunge and moved, first to a state where I had family and friends, and now to the state where my current position is located (thankfully, still close enough to family and friends).  And I really don't know what I expected to happen between the time that I left my previous job and now.  I thought I would probably spend more time writing my book.  I thought that I would read more and work out more.  I thought I would have some type of epiphany and discover what I was supposed to do.  I thought that some of the people I met along the way would be people I would become friends with.  I thought I had found a new mentor.  None of that really happened.  I really just moved to a new state and started a new job, and there is nothing magical about either of those things (if we're being pragmatic, which I am not prone to be).  

This process of going from being employed, to unemployment, to being employed again wasn't really about work, if you ask the people who know me best.  They would say that I have worked really hard and that I deserved a break.  And even I would say that I moved so that I could focus more on family, both my immediate family as well as the family I hope to have one day.  However, I learned how much I value work while I was unemployed.  I didn't do any of the things that I thought I would do during my break because I spent so much of that time focused on work: looking for work, doing part-time work, working on my job-search skills, networking, working on letters to help people get into school so that they can find meaningful work, and doing housework.  I viewed the six months I had off from work as more work, and I took on any and everything that would make me feel like a contributing member of society.  I didn't rest and relax as much as I could, or should have.  And I don't regret that. I don't apologize for it.  Even though I wasn't gainfully employed for half of this year, I was busy working to get to where I am today.  At this new job and in this new apartment in this new state; both a physical state as well as a spiritual, emotional, and mental state.

State commonly refers to… the present condition of a system or entity…

If there is anything that I learned in the past six months, it's that putting yourself in a position to receive something new takes work on your behalf.  It doesn't just happen because "it's meant to be".  I do tend to use that phrase often, but in reality, if I had not put in the time, energy, or effort to pack up and move, or to create the Excel chart to keep track of my job search, or to connect with any and everybody I needed to support me in this process, I would not be here today.  I believe that people and events do align to create the opportunities for new things to happen in our lives, but that only works if we are open to those people, and if we play our part at those events.  Nothing happens to me that I have not set in motion to occur.  You have to make your destiny, and along the way, God, people, and situations will lift you, hold you, and guide you towards that destiny.

I woke up one morning and DECIDED that the life I was living was no longer the life I wanted to live.  I CHOSE to step into many unknowns, with faith in God and the support of my family and friends.  I BELIEVED that wherever I landed, I would land safely.  And I TRUST that this is not the end of my story that began December 22, 2013, when I drove away from the state, and the condition, that I'd inhabited for thirteen years.  I KNOW that this is only the beginning of something new and great, and my soul and spirit are excited to see what new adventures await, in this new state of being that I have worked to reach.

A new state.  Get yours.  It takes work, but it's worth it. 

Home

Courtesy of www.craftyindividuals.co.uk

I feel like I'm sitting in a confessional.  "Bless me Father, for I have sinned, it has been two months since I quit my job, and these are my feelings."  These days, I count time based on when I left my job, and the city/town/village/boonies I lived in for thirteen years.  In the first month, I moved, spent the holidays with family, went on vacation by myself, and slept A LOT.  Woke up at ungodly hours of the day (11am for me is just lazy) and spent the day in pajamas until I could motivate myself to take a shower.  For most of this time of unemployment, I have not worn make-up, used a curling iron, or even wore pants.  Leggings all-day, err-day.  I have spent more time in the house than probably the entire amount of time I spent in my last apartment.

This is not me.  I am (or was) used to getting up early to do my morning yoga, eat breakfast, run out of the house, work, go to school a few times a week, run errands after work, and trying to look my best doing all of these things.  Some days, I could barely breathe.  I spent so much time doing something, and I am in an interesting place right now.  It's not good.  It's not bad, and people tell me that I am in the best place to do things for myself right now.  But when you are used to always performing, always striving, and always trying to please others (let me keep it real), resting is not part of the vocabulary.  After a while, you (at least I feel this way) start to get paranoid that people think you're a lazy bum.  Are you searching hard enough?  Why don't you have a job yet?  Why are you still in bed?  This is what the second month looks like.  Not really knowing what to do with myself, except that I know what I should be doing.  My close friends know what I should be doing.  But somehow, all of these feelings of guilt for not working my butt off every single day begin to eclipse my purpose and my head is filled with so many doubts and fears that it isn't clear enough to do what I should be doing, which is writing my book.  Or, you know, enjoying life.

I don't really want to get to the third month of unemployment, but it will be here in about four weeks. While I am starting to feel a shift - it could be the well-paying temporary work I got, it could be the weather, it could be the email inviting me for a phone interview - I am so ambivalent about what I'm feeling, who I am right now, what my purpose is, and where I will land.  I am meeting new people, catching up with old friends, and spending more time with family than I'm sure they really want.  But I am also missing people so much.  I spent about one month with my mother, with whom I had not spent so much time in the past ten years.  And at the age of 42, I feel as attached to her as I did when I was five.  While I have no children of my own, I had hundreds of students who called me Mama G, Mom, or Mommy.  Leaving them feels like I ripped out pieces of my heart and scattered them in so many places.  (For Harry Potter fans, it's like leaving little horcruxes everywhere!)  And there are some people I miss who I didn't even think I would miss so much.  We take so many things for granted - the every day conversations, the meals eaten together, even just passing each other in the hallway - that when those things don't happen anymore, it's like someone pulled the rug out from under you.

Someone told me yesterday, "You turned your life upside down."  I never thought of it that way until my feelings started to betray me.  When I decided to leave my job and the area I'd lived in since graduate school, I was so happy to do so.  I knew it had gotten stale, and that really, there were NO men for me to meet and fall in love and get married and have babies and live happily ever after with (I haven't given up on this dream yet!).  I knew that there was nowhere for me to go in my current job.  I knew that if I stayed, my spirit would have been crushed.  So all I felt was peace and happiness.  In the last couple of weeks, I was slapped with reality.  I don't have a job.  I actually don't have a permanent address.  I am staying with family, but ME, I'm HOMELESS.  Me.  The person who valued her space and her independence.  The person who valued being strong and secure.  I did turn my life upside down, and while so many people have said that what I did was brave, I don't feel so brave right now.

I told my sister I was afraid that I'd made a big mistake.  She said that I did what I needed to do at the time, that of course I would have some regrets.  Maybe this happens to everyone; actually, I'm sure it does, but I am usually so sure of myself that it's strange to feel so discombobulated.  The easiest thing I could do is go back.  I was job searching yesterday and found a position open at my old job, and for about half a millisecond I considered applying for it.  I had to talk myself out of it.  I thought about how I have an approved leave of absence from my doctoral program, and looked up a department I'd interviewed with at that institution to see if there were any openings.  I thought about going back.  And again, I had to tell myself that I never even wanted to live there in the first place and that when I interviewed for that job, I was so nervous that I would get it and have to live in that godforsaken place, but I interviewed anyway.  (Thank God, I didn't get that job.) 

So why am I sharing this?  Because, as with all things in life, there is a lesson.  I think I'm still learning this, but today, when I told one of my dearest former students "I don't know where I will land", she said, "Somewhere they are going to want you; no doubt you'll definitely be somewhere, because somebody needs you!"  And just like that, I remembered.  I remembered that I left because I was no longer needed where I was.  I left because my assignment was up.  My most vulnerable students, my first semester freshmen, were almost all doing well academically.  My sophomores and I had developed great relationships, but they actually needed me to leave so that they could grow up - several of them have told me that my leaving has forced them to do so.  My juniors and seniors, for the most part, were comfortable with advocating for themselves and planning for their futures.  And my women's leadership group has an amazing team of young women who understand the mission and goals of the organization and are more than capable of carrying the vision forward.  My friends had either left, or had other pursuits that were taking up their time, and I no longer felt supported, personally or at work.  It was time to go.  

Moving forward is hard.  Yes, in the beginning, you might feel some peace.  That is what God gives you so that you have the strength to take the risk.  But in the transition time, you will feel doubt.  That's when I keep reminding myself that God brought me here, and He will not leave me.  I'm not always going to be in this state of emotional purgatory; and yet this is where I need to be right now - to be cleansed of old thoughts and habits that related to an old lifestyle, and to start again, pure and ready to embrace the new assignment God has for me.  

The feeling of homelessness happens when your soul and spirit are unsettled.  That feeling of not knowing where you will land will go away when you land in your new purpose.  And wherever your spiritual feet touch the ground, that will be home.  It's not always where your friends and family are, or where you have job security, but where your spirit says, "I am home.  I am where I need to be for this time in my life."  

Resistance Is Futile (Get Comfortable with Change!)

By Hugh MacLeod

About two weeks ago, I bought a new laptop.  My old laptop has been hangin' tough with me for almost eight years.  It never crashed, I never lost anything I'd written, it never got a crazy virus that wiped out my hard drive, nothing.  Granted, I am pretty careful about downloading and I barely used it for more than online surfing and creating documents, but in eight years, I cannot say I'd had any major problems with it.

But I needed a new laptop.  The old one just didn't have enough memory to even watch a video.  I couldn't download new programs or update my old ones.  I asked my nephew, who is about to graduate with a master's degree in computer science, to take a look at it and help me pick out a new laptop.  He said, simply, that my old laptop just didn't have enough memory.  It wasn't that I had put so much stuff on it that slowed it down, it just wasn't capable of giving me what I needed at this time.

I gave in, and bought a new laptop.  I'm using it right now.  But this laptop...well, although my nephew assured me it was a pretty good laptop, and all of the reviews were positive, so many people who had previously bought this brand did not like it at all.  People told me stories of how quickly the battery dies, how hot the laptop gets, how it crashed within a short time after they purchased it.  There were so many opinions about this laptop that, every time I turn it on or use it for more than an hour, I get a little anxious.  I haven't truly enjoyed my new laptop.  I keep wondering when it's going to "go" on me, or what will happen if I download iTunes, or if I'm not understanding how to use it, and will it break because I don't completely understand it yet.

The new laptop doesn't have any of my pictures, my music, or the books I've started to write.  It doesn't know anything about me.  Sometimes I have to go back to the old laptop to retrieve information.  It requires effort to plug it in, turn it on, and wait for it to start up to get what I need from it.  The new one and I are still getting to know each other, but the old one knows me, and I understand it.  But I just can't get what I need from it anymore.  Times have changed, technology has evolved, and I must change and evolve as well.

In life, as in technology, we must change; we must evolve.  In order to progress as individuals in our personal or professional lives, we have to be open to new people, ideas, circumstances, feelings, and mindsets.  Sometimes the job you've had for a long time has provided you with comfort, stability, and a good paycheck, but it's not helping you grow as a professional or providing intellectual challenges.  Sometimes the people who have been in your life the longest are easy to keep around because you know them, but they are not willing to support you, or don't listen to you, or they don't want to change or grow, much less deal with you if you're trying to change or grow.  Sometimes the thought patterns you've carried throughout your life are comfortable, but there's always an out of place thought that pops up, telling you that this isn't working, there must be something else, something more.

It's easy to remain in our comfort zones.  It's hard when people don't understand our desire to grow and to move in a different direction. It's frightening when we think we have to start all over again, that if we start a new relationship, we have to create all new memories, or if we start a new job and it doesn't work out, we've lost professional or financial stability.  We hold ourselves back when we continue to live with the fear that what's ahead of us will not work out.  But if we could understand that change is inevitable and will help us grow, we would embrace the new while appreciating the old that carried us through to our present point.  Resistance is futile.  Fighting change is like swimming against the tide, or trying to walk up the left side of a crowded New York City subway staircase.  All it does is keep you in the same place, like a hamster in a wheel, running but going nowhere.  Futile. 

This new laptop is pretty cool.  I will enjoy it for the time that I have it, and if and when I need a new one, I believe that God will make a way for me to get it, just as He made a way for me to get this one, just in time for me to start a new adventure - a doctoral program.  That's pretty much how the universe works, isn't it?

I'm Coming Out! (I Want The World To Know...)

Since I've started this blog, I've been careful not to reveal too much about my identity because of the sensitive nature of my job.  This past week, however, I've realized that my pride for my students far outweighs the boundaries of disclosure.

As a counselor for Access Opportunity Programs and the faculty coordinator and advisor of the Women's Leadership Institute at SUNY Geneseo, I have the pleasure of working with some of the brightest students who are not only academically astute, they are also leaders and community activists.  When adversity strikes, such as the earthquake in Haiti last year, the suicides of several young males who were bullied because of their sexual orientation, the passing of a child from leukemia, or the death of a baby, only 9 days old, from congenital heart disease, these students pour their hearts, time and efforts into creating awareness and making change. 

Today, I want to share some of those efforts, especially those that were shared with the world via YouTube this week.  I am proud to say that I know these students, and for this reason, I'm coming out.  Kind of.  Just to let you know that I am proud of the students in the Access Opportunity Programs and the Women's Leadership Institute for being the catalysts for change this world needs.

The videos below speak for themselves!

Hearts for Sammy:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AzQUv3EkByw

SUNY Geneseo - It Gets Better
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sap_ofJv5bQ

Please watch, enjoy, and come out in support of the change our young people are making in the world!

~Trish