We'll go ahead and call that goal-oriented. And, I did those things. I worked very hard and I made those things happen--me and my pile of debt, that is. It's what I wanted to do. But, in making these grand plans for myself, for my career, for my education, I sort of forgot about taking myself into consideration.
So, while accomplishing all of my goals brought me some type of satisfaction, it also brought me a pretty large deal of frustration, some anger, and a heaping dose of being overwhelmed. I am the type of person who takes on much more than is necessary. So, I spent a few years just being unhappy. I got sick, due in part to the fact that sometimes my body doesn't work properly and due in part to the anxiety and stress that I had been feeling for so long. I ate poorly. I didn't sleep. I didn't take time to appreciate the positives around me. My life was terribly unbalanced.
I think I struggled most with a bad attitude about how I'd gotten where I wanted to be, but was still not happy with my life. And, at some point, I realized that I was so focused on fitting myself into a box that I'd left everything else on the wayside. So, I decided that no one was going to help me get what I needed--it was something I needed to do on my own.
In the past year, I've re-prioritized. My job is important. My writing is important. But, I am also important--fun is important--adventure is important. I've always been unapologetically exactly the person I was meant to be. Sometimes that has been to my advantage, other times it's been detrimental to my larger goals. However, being who I am has helped me to meet and cultivate relationships with people who both put up with me and also genuinely appreciate me as a person. I, in turn, love and relish the people who have chosen to be a part of my life. We're odd. We don't always make sense as a group. But, somehow it works.
When you meet me, I am exactly who you think I am. I do not hold back because it seems like a waste of time. It's just that now I'm letting that spill over into all facets of my life. I'm letting it drive. While my problems haven't been magically solved over night, I am a happier person. I attempted to use identity management to let my students see a tamer version of myself. What that really did was give them a tamer version of the class; it took away from how vibrant and fun my job could truly be. So, I took that back. I am as off beat in the class as I am outside of it. I let it show in my wardrobe. I let it show in the way I structure and run my classes. I have as much fun as I can while teaching, without sacrificing the rigor of the academic classroom. My students seem to want to learn if it's clear that I want to be there.
I always tell my students to write about something they're interested in. If you are bored by the topic, you'll write a boring paper. The same thing is true of teaching. If you think you have to be a boring teacher, you will have bored students. I don't think I have it all figured out. I am constantly working to change or improve things that I do in the classroom -- I get bored easily, but I truly want the student experience to be as rich as it can be. I want them to leave my room not hating the subject matter -- they come in dreading my classes and not wanting to be there. I don't want that to be what they take away.
But, I've drawn some very rigid lines in my life. I cannot and do not let my job run my life because you cannot sustain that without some type of burn out -- and I hit that ceiling a long time ago and kept pushing until I finally gave out. So, my work stays at work. My home stays at home. My fun goes wherever the fun lives. Truly, I am not sure if compartmentalizing is better or worse for you, but I can say that I am a happier person than I was when I let all of the lines bleed into one another.
I've realized that it's important to take time to indulge in things that you love, to not let societal norms and values dictate your behaviors. So, I have fun. If I have down time, I use it to do something I want to do, something that will make me happy, something potentially selfish. It might be sitting at home and playing video games, or painting, or crocheting -- because I'm a little cartoon old woman at heart. But, maybe it's going out to karaoke once a week or three times a week, however many times I want to. It's also running around outside, sitting around bonfires, going to concerts, watching Netflix, spending time with my niece and nephew, hanging out with my mom, eating food I shouldn't eat, riding roller coasters, hopping on trains, flying to other countries, visiting places I've always dreamed of seeing, reading a book about wizards (any, maybe, talking in wizard voice for a few days), or it's investigating odd shops or parks or museums, seeing how many Asian markets I can get to in a single day, having cheesecake (and, also remembering to have lactaid), buying toys, giving toys, singing, car dancing, jumping in puddles, riding horses, loving my pets, loving my friends, loving my family, trying out for plays, agreeing to join 80s cover bands, serving on committees, making jokes, watching wrestling, quoting movies, letting nostalgia rule my world, falling in love with Lloyd Dobbler (over and over, again). Or, maybe it's staying in and sleeping. Maybe it's spending time with just myself. There isn't really a set schedule to dictate my life. No matter how many responsibilities we bear, we have to take time to be people. We have make time for the things we enjoy.
I work. I play. I sleep. But, I do so on my terms. I do so with my personality. I go into life with the understanding that I am who I am and that sometimes people will hate that, but others will not. I appreciate who I am, how I got here and the people that have let me get mascara all over their boobs when crying in the middle of the night. I see life as a series of misfortunes with little, but vibrant, bright spots in-between. Life is not easy; it's much more than I signed up for. But, it has value.
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