Most of the people I admire do something I consider to be very brave: they report from the messy middle. It is usually so much easier to reflect, draw conclusions, even smile at heartbreak from the comfortable distance of a month, a year or a decade. But to look at things as they are unfolding and say yes, this is what I am feeling right now and it scares me and I feel like doing anything to stop it and, by the way, I have no idea how all of this will turn out? Now, in my book, that is courage. So, as it scares me so, that is my sign that I need to try it. Here goes my report from the messy middle.
For the longest time I have defined myself by the work I did, whether it was teaching language, being a secretary (which, by the way, I never believed to be a demeaning term), a personal assistant, a manager, a communicator, a creator or a service provider in a school’s admissions and marketing office. I took my job personally and did my best. In fact, commitment and hard work have always been my hallmarks, making up for the brilliance and genius I saw in others I looked up to. Navigating intense and ongoing personal challenges, my jobs, my career, dare I say, have sustained me, given me a path to hang on to, more than just the means for a life of plenty on most days. I would really be lying to say that any of the jobs I have ever done, regardless how small, was ever “ just a job.” It is how I am built.
As the boat of my personal life stopped rocking and started to provide the joy and stability I had once only found at the office, I became courageous (and encouraged) to start rocking my professional boat. To no longer consider stability, caution and a steady paycheck reasons enough to stay. Privilege, yes, I know, and I am very grateful. In the honeymoon period of my decision to leave the first real job I had ever known, stepping away from an institution that had been my home and rock for two decades, I felt elated, energized by the prospect of new beginnings, new ideas and new opportunities. And when this faded, I understood that I had been successful: the boat was truly rocking. And the waves hitting it were questions like: what do I really know to do? What am I really good at and will anyone need that? Am I still relevant? Where do I even start to reinvent myself? Do I? And the tsunami: did I make a mistake?
There was a small voice of which I could hear only a whisper, softly saying from inside: no, this was not a mistake; your soul was withering. Trust. Forward. And then the waves again. Trust what? Forward towards what?
It has been three years since I started rocking my professional boat and, looking back I realize I have tried the extremes: deciding to go back in time and take jobs I had at the beginning of my career. It seemed the logical thing to do if I was to start again: go back to what you know you can do and start from there. I felt diminished, not challenged, as if I alone minimized my spirit and cut off its wings. I then threw the pendulum all the way to the other side and relocated at 47, starting a completely new life. Too much. Too extreme. I guess rocking all boats at once is never a good idea.
It would be so easy to point fingers to things that made me want to change each job I had in the past thirty years. It’s so easy to make it someone else’s fault and show how I had to go. Today, from the messy middle, looking back, trying to be as honest as possible with myself (because, otherwise, what is even the point?) I cannot unsee things I understood about myself as a professional. And while there is little I can change about any other individual (even the one I carried for nine months) or institution (even the one I called home for years), being honest about challenges within and looking discomfort in the face, being honest about what has to change and looking for the soft voices behind the gremlins, now, that is something that is within my power. Or it should be.
In the mirror of my professional life I clearly saw beauty marks: avid learner, compassionate human, good listener, hard worker. And I allowed myself to also look at the blemishes (and held my own hand as I was doing so): mistaking leadership for management and a team with a group of friends, working non stop, taking on more than I could carry and ending up resentful, exhausted and ready to bail, talking when I should have been silent, saying yes of course when the answer should have been a simple no, speaking about people not in the room, being overly vulnerable and trusting on and on and on that people meant well and are good. (Wait, is this last one a blemish or a beauty mark?)
Not sleeping last night was a sign for me that the honeymoon of being back home after a year and half abroad is over. No, I am not sorry we came back, just as I am not sorry we left in the first place. I am a better person for it. I hope we all are. But now that all the honey in the moon has been drained, here the waves go again. Only this time, because the boat is bigger, older, more experienced, the waves are true rockers: if I don’t think I will work full time in a school again, who am I professionally? Does what I know really matter anymore in this world that changes its colors overnight? And if I do get hired, what do I do / can I do about all of the blemishes? Is what I am unlearning and learning useful? What for? Why (anything)?
Yes, being able to lose sleep over these issues and not my or my loved ones’ health, peace or poverty issues is an immense privilege and I am grateful every single moment I remember that it is. When the waves subside, that is. All I know is that I desperately want to make a difference. And not just to the world around but also to myself. Maybe to myself before anything. What does that even mean? Do I have the energy? And if the answer to the latter is no, how / where do I get the energy I need? What kind of energy do I need? And for what?
The messy middle feels to me like a lake that looks amazing from the shores but is full of underwater vegetation that pulls my feet down as I try to swim in it. And, of course, I got the message: the more I struggle to untangle myself, the more I try to avoid these green ties making me feel more and more stuck, the more I drown. Keep your eyes on the target, some would say. But what if I don’t know what the target is? I asked the Universe / Great Mystery / Love last night about this and I could have just punched her when I heard the answer (repeatedly): just breathe. In and out. Repeat.
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