I am frustrated. This life has me feeling like a
caged animal. Anytime I slow down long enough to stand at a slight remove from
the many moving parts of my life, I get depressed. Is this what all my hard
work, my passion, my attempts at giving my all and having faith and doing
without in the present in hopes of something more substantial, sustainable, and
tailored to my preferences in the future, have yielded?
Two weeks ago, I left town on a dime – something
I never do given my current work life
and financial limitations. My grandma was violently ill, which only compounded
the sense of urgency to see her that had gnawed at me over the previous week, in
the wake of two other vivid reminders of mortality in the lives of those close
to me. Which is how, on the first Wednesday in April, I managed to wake up in
Norcross, Georgia, learn my grandma (“Gram”) had been rushed to the ER in Western New York,
drive and ride the train to work in downtown Atlanta, receive permission to
cancel classes, return home, purchase a ticket, and by 10:06 p.m., find myself
plucking my travel-worn duffel bag from Buffalo-Niagara International Airport’s
baggage claim carousel. By the next morning, I was kissing my groggy Gram, who
had just been moved from the ICU to a regular room on the hospital’s third
floor.
It takes a lot of resources to get from Point A
to Point B and back. Upon learning of my grandmother’s illness, my boyfriend,
Jason, who maintains his own fierce devotion to his family, offered to buy me a
ticket so I could be there with my Gram. While my ego would like to sustain the
illusion of self-sufficiency, the fact of the matter is (and doing my taxes this
weekend will only reinforce this), I am still, at age 36, living below – or –
progress!– perhaps teetering precariously on – the poverty line, a fact which
not only embarrasses and confounds me, but which maintains a squatter’s camp
inside my chest like a leaden piece of festering fruit. And while I hesitate to
write directly about this subject, I know I must, because it represents the
nexus of so many anxieties, frustrations, and questions, all of which hinge on
my choice of path in life, and my track record of pursuing that path to
date.
All romanticism about being an artist has bled
from me like fruit punch from an upturned clear plastic cup. And this notion
that teaching art – particularly college art, in which classes typically convene
only twice a week – is an “easy”, “efficient” way to support one’s “real” work
as an artist…well, let’s just say my experience annihilates any substance that
notion may have ever been founded upon (and yes, I’m content to end that
sentence with a preposition).
I accepted Jason’s offer to buy my plane ticket.
Without his help, I couldn’t have made it to my Gram’s bedside – not enough
credit on my credit card, not enough cash in the bank for a last-minute
round-trip ticket. With his help, I was able to rent a car, which allowed me to
get to my Grandma expeditiously, and with as little inconvenience as possible to
my hardworking aunts and uncles who live with and near my grandma, hold down
jobs of their own, and tend daily to her care. I wanted to be present for all of
them, like an adult, ready to help. I wanted to be present with my grandma,
especially if this might be my last visit with her (she has thankfully pulled
through and is now working on regaining her ability to walk in rehab).
And while it may seem blasphemous or at
least misguided to dwell on money in light of the larger point, which is the
sacredness of my grandma’s life, the trouble is, for me, these issues are
inseparable. It is my inability to have secured a full-time, salaried position
thus far in life, that keeps me from seeing my grandma more than once a year or
every other year. It is the same inability that would have made it impossible
for me to be there for her (and for me, to honor the directive issued by my
heart, gut, and spirit). At 36, and as someone who feels like she works
diligently and with real dedication and integrity, this shortfall frustrates
and shames me. It leaves me feeling painfully inept, as though I’m missing some
really glaring piece of data that would help me focus my efforts in a more
constructive direction – one with a more sustainable
yield.
So many things in my present life seem to be
underscoring for me the ways in which I am not self-sufficient, not independent.
Just this week, I began exploring a series of wooded trails at a nearby park as
a way of resurrecting my long-dormant running practice. Everything about being
out on those trails felt dead-on right to me: fecund damp-earth smells, tender
spring greens bursting from the tips of every branch, the sonic tapestry of
birdsong filling the air like a honeyed kaleidoscope, sunlight dissolving
sugar-like into my skin, the guttural liquid motion of the river. I
was home. Yet, as I ran and walked these fairly isolated trails alone two
mornings in a row, I noted a gnawing awareness in my gut that this was just the
sort of place predators prefer. Jason and I talked about safety a bit, and I
researched what avid trail runners had to say. The answer? Don’t do it. Women: don’t run alone.
In almost every aspect of my current life, I am
either caged, bombarded, or both. I live in an apartment in a crowded,
vaguely-sketchy complex, in a highly congested, heavily-foot-and-car-trafficked
suburb of Atlanta. I commute on clotted roadways and ride public transportation,
surrounded alternately by aggressive drivers, urine smells, and people talking
loudly on their cell phones a few seats away. I teach at a college where I am
constantly surrounded by students. For my 20-minute lunch break between classes,
I sit in the shadow of a dumpster on an outside ledge in an attempt at solitude.
The alternative is venturing across the street to a park frequented by
aggressive homeless men who ask anyone resembling a student or teacher for
money. (I have even considered lunching in a bathroom stall, but know I would
feel stressed by the guilt of depriving those pacing feet just outside of their
justly-sought relief.) Further, I spend hours at my computer creating lesson
plans, grading student work, responding to emails. My relationship with Vitamin
D is like that of a child to Santa Claus: I take its existence on faith because
others so enthusiastically proclaim it. Venturing into the woods to run trails
is an assertion of freedom, of my own wildness. It is a way of getting away from
people, to whom I am painfully sensitive and toward whom I feel an innate
responsibility to be vigilant and compassionate, and, instead, of getting in
touch with my own body and spirit. It is also a way of shaking up and releasing
all the energetic, psychological, and physical baggage accumulated by the
simple,complex act of living life. I forget how essential these acts of agitation and
release really are. They keep me well, keep me sane, keep me authentic.
But the wisdom on the subject is resounding: women, don’t run trails alone. When I
brought this conflict up with Jason last night, he was full of safer solutions,
compromises, and optimistic re-framings of the situation. He meant well and was
very sweetly trying to be supportive. I could only growl in response. My
frustration ran deeper than hopeful solutions. For me, this conundrum is but
another arrow pointing toward the bigger question of why I don’t feel like I’m
in control of my life, of why I feel my earnest efforts are somehow nonetheless
misguided. And while I am humble enough to recognize that orchestrating the
bigger picture is neither in my job description nor remotely within my scope, I
do fervently believe in free will, and in the transformative power of aligning
one’s sense of purpose and passion, with one’s will and daily actions.
The closer I get to the things I thought I
wanted, the more they seem to confound me, to frustrate me, to stress and
disappoint me. All of which leaves me wondering if the problem is really me. Am
I just a restless soul who is impatient, fault-finding, not easily satisfied?
Are the kinds of fulfillment, sustainability, and happiness I have sought, in
fact, the products of a grossly naïve imagination? In times like these, a
shadowy all-or-nothing streak deep within me rears its head, taunting me with
fantasies of giving up all these challenging, frustrating, elusive pursuits for
a simpler, hermit-style life. When I feel at my most difficult, this part of me
asks, “Would it not be better to un-inflict yourself on your partner, to remove
yourself from those for whom your own troubled-ness is troubling?” I have high
expectations for the kind of person I want to be in a relationship, in my
professional roles. Lately, I feel I have been allowing the stresses and
demands of my professional pursuits to deprive me of a relationship with
myself, and clearly this has impacted my relationship with my boyfriend. It
just seems so challenging, at my age, to balance all the moving parts. There
seem to be more moving parts than ever, and I guess one fantasy that’s been
sustaining me, is this notion that “when I get a real job”, greater stability
will allow for greater balance, greater focus, and deeper fulfillment. This
fantasy may be just that, and my own spiritual training has taught me about the
foolishness of staking one’s happiness on future gains (or losses).
I am unsatisfied with how un-happy I have been in
the present. I know we weren’t meant to live like this – caged, stressed,
trapped in sluggish bodies, overstimulated, overbooked, perpetually insecure
about the future. I know true happiness cannot be conditional – that it must be
achieved independent of the ebbs and flows of circumstance. And yet, this season
in my life is making a fool out of the “me” that used to embody that wisdom. I
feel so conditional – so conditioned by the present circumstances of my life. I
want to feel more gratitude for the good things than I do. A sense of fatigue,
frustration, and anxiety seems to win out. Increasingly, my adult life seems
to me to have been erected on a haphazard foundation. I count more gray hairs
each morning, feel my “beginner’s luck” drying up. I secretly wonder if I’m
just inept – unable to “get it” the way other adults do, too sensitive,
perhaps, to lead a “normal” life, absorbing stresses gracefully the way so many
others seem to. I feel like an escapee from The Island of Misfit Toys, as
though life is increasingly calling my bluff. It’s like that “naked in front of
an audience” dream so many confess to, except in slow motion, before a very
distracted, mostly disinterested audience. And while I am grateful for their
disinterest, I am perplexed as to just what I should be wearing, and what it is
I really stepped on this dream-stage to say or
do.
Addendum (added 4.14.2013):
I started this blog with the goal of creating a
space for an honest conversation about the ins and outs and ups and downs of
pursuing a purposeful, meaningful life on one’s own terms. We hear so much
pop-psych lip service paid to the importance of “following your dream” and “do
what you love and the money will follow”, but what, I wanted to explore, is that
process really like? And are there
tipping points when you decide to change course,
shift gears, when you reassess
certain assumptions or choices
altogether?
It is easier to talk about challenges when you
have allowed some time and space to pass, when you are looking at them from a
safe distance and can place them in a meaningful context. From this remove, a
lesson can be extracted from even the worst experiences, and can be neatly
delivered in an uplifting post. I am better at this sort of blog post, and more
hesitant when it comes to being brutally honest about a challenge when I am
still in the throes of it. Why may
be obvious, but let’s just spell it out, just in case: a) It’s more vulnerable
to be honest about personal struggles that are, as yet, unresolved. Doing so
opens you up to criticism, to being judged as “weak”, “whiny”, etc. And,
stepping back even further, doing so means admitting
you struggle and don’t always see the lesson or understand the best way to
proceed right away. b) Writing a blog means subjecting others (willing readers)
to your thoughts and perspectives; are you prepared to inflict negativity on
good people who are just looking for some insight or for a story to which they
may be able to relate? That’s a heavy burden to
bear.
On the flip side, if I only ever write from a
place of equipoise and hindsight, is my blog really living up to its stated
mission? I’d like to think of my own posts as dispatches from the trenches of a
life being lived on purpose, in pursuit of what I feel to be my calling as an
artist, teacher, writer and observer. Likewise, I have been moved and profoundly
enlightened by the responses of generous readers of this blog, who have,
themselves, taken the time and the risk of sharing their own struggles and
perspectives. In many cases, the insights that have touched me most are those
that are most vulnerable, most unresolved, most factual about the texture of
lived experience. As a teacher, artist, writer, spiritual seeker, and as a
human bean, I have always given primacy to empirical data. To quote Robert
Marley, “He who feels it knows it.” I have always gravitated towards authors
who dare to share the unvarnished reality of what lived experience really feels
like, and who describe honestly the winding, faltering, unexpected ways by
which we arrive at understanding. I aspire to write in this spirit, as an act
of devotion to all of us who are trying to engineer, and to navigate, a life of
meaning.
Yesterday’s post about the difficult moment in
which I find myself was a risk. I didn’t really want to drag anyone else through
a description of what’s not working in my life. Everyone has their own problems;
who needs (or wants) to read about someone else’s? I chose, however, to push
myself to put my present-moment feelings and experience into words, and to put
it “out there”, because these low moments are such an integral part of the
risk-taking involved in building an unconventional life – one staked on what you
feel to be your calling, rather than on material goals. I would feel like a liar
and a coward if I didn’t share this little dispatch from my own personal trench.
I know I’ll climb back out of it (and encounter new trenches in the future), but
being in it is a very real
experience, and one I feel is undeniably significant to the experiment of
pursuing a meaningful life on one’s own
terms.
Please consider this addendum an apology
in the traditional sense of the word: “a defense, excuse, or justification in
speech or writing”, as well as the modern. I am sorry
to have put forth some negative sentiments into the blogoshphere, and yet,
I needed to do so to stay true to this
humble blog’s mission. A hearty thanks to each of you who takes the time to read
this, and to those of you who go a step further, sharing thoughts, experiences,
and new perspectives. May your way be clear and may you be supported abundantly
by forces both seen and unseen.