whatilearnedtodaydotcom

It hurts!

Well, it happened again. I found my limits by walking right on by them.

How much can I do in a semester? Not this much.

What is falling by the wayside? A few things.

What is different this time? I recognize it while it is happening. In the past, I would wonder why I felt so grumpy and tired and angry and stressed. This time I know why, which helps mitigate the angry and stressed. This time I have the regular gym appointments. This time I let some things go.

I am pretty sure they are the right things.

This time, I have help with the home things so I can get the work things done.

This time, I have less responsibility for looking after people. They take care of that.

But, I don’t want to be here too many more times before I retire. This is hard on my heart and soul.

Note: I wrote this in 2023 and now I am publishing it in 2025. Why so long? I don’t even really remember Winter 2023, but I am glad I seem to have recovered from it.

Hard edges are full stops.

When my words are abrupt, dialogue is cut off

When my words are statements, dialogue is not encouraged

When my tone is hard, dialogue can become an argument

When my face is not open, dialogue bounces off

When I approach a topic without first having thought it through for myself, dialogue becomes more about me than about us

When my thoughts and feelings are all swirled together, dialogue becomes a mess

If dialogue is the goal, be soft

Listening to the conversation between Dora and Sam on Headspace as they “explore their personal relationships to womanhood, solidarity, and breaking out of boxes” reminds me that the way my mother walked through her life is not the same way I will walk through my life. This also reminded me that the way I have walked/am walking through my life is not the way my daughters will walk through their lives.

No kidding.

But it is good to say it out loud.

For me, grief is a heavy garment that cloaks my body and drags behind me. Sometimes it covers my eyes, making it difficult to see beyond it. Sometimes it covers my nose and mouth, making it difficult to breathe deep and cleansing breaths. Sometimes it holds me down in place and the world just moves around me. When that happens, I can see the world and I want to take part in it, but I just cannot.

And then, without any rhyme or reason, the grief lightens and I am free. I can walk the dog with my head held high. I can cross country ski around the park. I can sing and dance. I can knit with speed and agility.

There is also an in-between. A weight of grief on me that allows me to do the things but without the joy.

From what I know and read, grief moves of its own accord. It cannot be forced. It will rest on me for as long as it does.

As a woman in her 40s with offspring in their teens I spent a great deal of time questioning myself and wondering what I was doing right and wrong in my life. Was I on the career path I wanted to be on? Was I happy in my marriage? Was I happy with my living situation? Was I happy with my fitness and health? Was I happy with my relationships? If I answered any question with a “no” did I know how to make the necessary changes? If I answered “yes” did I know how to maintain the situations?

There always seems to be some chatter about women who are behind men in their career trajectory. I suggest maybe it is not that women are behind men, but that a certain personality of men and women seem to be ahead of other men and women. Forgetting for a moment the concept of ahead and behind in a career trajectory, some people seem to be drive straight and fast through a career path and end up in senior positions at a relatively young age. Other people sit at the intersection of many paths and drive up and back, trying new paths before settling on one that takes them into their career. And, other people start up a path, then pull over for a while, living a life that is outside of the career path, before they continue forward. I also expect there are people who, once they are on a career path, simply drive forward slowly, thinking and questioning all the way along.

Thinking and questioning probably look a lot like indecision and lack of confidence. For myself, the thinking and questioning has solidified in my mind what it is important to me, both in my career and in my personal life. I have solid answers because I devoted time to myself and my thoughts, necessarily taking time away from the drive forward on my career path. Am I behind or am I in a different place?

Every single time I forget this, I live to regret this. From the simplest of situations to the big life situations, the best course of action is to start doing the things you think you want to be doing at the end of the situation. You need to spend time thinking ahead to what the future might look like before you begin.

Current example: my dog loves popcorn. I used to share with her when I made some yummy, buttery popcorn when watching a movie or marking exams. Several years on, she is a crazed lunatic for popcorn. In fact, I rarely make popcorn because of the hassle of eating it with her face two centimeters from my popcorn bowl or whining under the table.

It might not be easy, but that does not mean it might not work

When people tell me they are overwhelmed, I try to commiserate with them enough to let them know that I understand the feeling of being overwhelmed, but I quickly (too quickly?) jump to action and to disrupt the sense of being overwhelmed. I suggest the usual ideas like making a list of things to be done, free writing to get the clogged thoughts out of the way, going for a walk to use up some of the energy that is zinging along the nerves, having a snack to fuel the brain, drinking some water to hydrate the tissues, and taking some time to do some deep restorative breathing.

Yeah.

Well, today I am overwhelmed. Like, very overwhelmed. I don’t see how any of those suggestions will help. I want to scream out loud (I already did once!) and hide under my desk until all of my deadlines pass by. I cannot drink more water. I cannot even think of the first item to put on a list. My neurons are beyond zinging, they are in the full on zoomies. Everything I start just leads to more things and more demands by people. Everything I answer creates another question. Everything I start seems like an obvious demonstration of my lack of ability to do anything right.

Wait. This is like free writing to unclog the thoughts. Hmm, it helped a bit. I can actually see a couple of things I got right today. Maybe something else from my suggestions will help.

I can hear a little voice in there. It is saying, try the walk in the sun with the dog. Then dig out that list that someone sent you that you saw as a big TO DO and use it as a normal to do. Have a bit of chocolate. Pick one physical thing that is bugging you (that stupid ponytail?) and change it.

Try it. Just try it and see. Let me know how it goes. Maybe overwhelmed is sometimes solved by a list.

My instinct is to get growl-y when people talk about using gratitude to find your way out of the dark times and places and into the light. I want to say, “What the fuck does that beautiful sunset have to do with this situation?” In reality, the sunset probably has nothing at all to do with the situation, beyond the fact that the sun is providing for life on Earth, but the acknowledgment that human souls are soothed by the beauty of the sunset may be the first step on the path out of darkness.

I am so tired. Everyday. Almost every hour of every day. The cause is easy to identify, but seemingly difficult to remedy. I don’t sleep enough. I am an early bird living with two night owls. I am a light sleeper in a house where people walk around all night long. I am a sponge of other people’s emotions, meaning my brain spins not only with my thoughts but also the perceived thoughts of others.

The effect of this is that I don’t get stuff done. I often feel lazy and then guilty about not getting things done. My cupboards are not purged. My books are not sorted. My hair does not get cut. I don’t paint or sew or read or whatever, as much as I want.

The above was started in 2017. Jumping forward to 2019, I can answer my own question. I was tired. So very tired. I learned that tired comes not only from a night, or a month of nights, of not enough sleep, but tired also comes from the incremental piling up of exhausting and stressful events of our lives. My body, my soul, my heart, and my brain were all holding onto different bits of energy from different events, and this energy was heavy and in constant motion. It made me tired. I can only see that now, after two years of shedding most of it, bit by bit.

Now, most of the time, I can see and feel the vestiges of those long-ago events as they are re-awakened by current events. I can recognize them as I feel inexplicably more exhausted than I should be, based on my current situation. I give myself the space to feel as tired as I actually am, not as tired as I think I should be. I give myself permission to stand up to people in my life and say, “yes, I am tired and worn down and part of it comes from being tired and worn down all those years ago. I need rest. I will rest.”

Jump forward again to 2020. I am re-learning how to stand up for myself and I am grateful for the champions in my life that remind me that taking care of my sleep is important.

I am a semester-by-semester contract instructor, a sessional, at a medium-sized university. I have been at this gig for 18 years, with a 7 year stretch in a coveted term position that offered slightly more job security with its one year contracts. Over this time, I have taught any number of first-year courses, with a few semesters of upper-level courses, to classes of 30 students up to 300 students. I teach over 250 students every year. I love teaching.

I have been nominated for a teaching award (results still unknown) and I have received good evaluations from students, colleagues, and administration. I have, as part of my contract, benefits and a pension plan. I am included in many opportunities for professional development and I have had opportunities to become a great instructor. Every year, at this time, I am reminded that my work here is important, but the marking of the time I have spent here is not worth noting. Each spring, the institution publishes the list of people who are achieving service milestones, and as I peruse the list, I see where I would fit in among my colleagues. I won’t be included in any official list as institutions of higher learning still seem reluctant to recognize that they need contract instructors. Institutions are measured in such a way that contract instructors are seen as a detriment, even while the institutions often very highly value their contract instructors. It is a conundrum and not one that will be solved soon.

So, I raise my glass, I toast myself, I mark my time. Whatever anyone else recognizes, we must always recognize ourselves.