I dread the possibility of becoming a negative person. And yet, the events over the last few days, the last week, have drawn me down, so that all I can see is down low.
These events aren't so important, really. Things I thought I cared about going away. Things I did actually care about. When I try to put into perspective (I have my health, Pip is doing okay, kicking along, I have my partner, I have a job, etc.), it doesn't take. It's more like a distraction, and then I will go on and do other things, but before I know it my mind wanders back and my heart is breaking again.
I guess that there are fundamental questions I need to ask myself. For instance, how committed am I to working at a job that I treat in a sincere manner? I have always been a person that has given 100% in her work, even when that work was menial. My work now is not menial in that I am doing something that others would class as needing skills and garnering some respect, some status, but actually day after day, year and year, it has become menial. The kids I work with can give respect and sometimes do, but there is also a "substitute teacher" vein in the larger culture that eventually gets to them. I thought I had overcome it, with my commitment to my own dignity and the dignity of others, but I was reminded the other day that I am "only" this role. A massive part that I had stepped forward to add on, that gave me a lot of meaning and that required a lot of my attention and effort was taken from me and given to someone of the appropriate status. On one level, I know it is for the best. The person who will receive this responsibility, when the time comes to transition, is a good person, with good intentions. He will do a fine job, and perhaps, although we cannot know the future, this will be the best thing for the kids, which is the most important thing.
But I am shocked at the seismic proportion of heartache I feel. I feel like I am staring down the barrel of daily work that is sustainable in that it will continue and perhaps it will be better for me, me as a Mom, Pip, my family. It just all feels so patronising and devoid of the sort of meaning that I gave it. It was like when I managed a gas station back in the US. I had a bit of a tendency to look after the homeless people that would come in and by their things there. They were people I knew by name and when they disappeared for a while, I would ask after them.
Was I their "social worker"? No, I do not have that qualification. I was a person who cared, who was good at caring.
I gotta remember that it will be ok. That this sadness, though unimaginable to others in a similar position and role, who have this responsibility like a yoke around their necks, not wanting it, in a larger culture that seems to take pride in not feeling, is ok for me to feel.
I just don't want to cry at work. Please, universe, don't let me cry at work.
So, I am feeling less the negative person now, and just a bit miserable. See, this too shall pass, is
Pema talks about how many people pride themselves on not letting their hearts be touched. That they gird themselves against pain and anything getting inside and see this as a triumph when really, letting ourselves feel it, however horrible the "it" is, means we ultimately grow and move and get on. This is the victory.
And I try to consider that just having a job, an in-and-out, don't suck up your life sort of task that pays the bills is ultimately a good thing. I never wanted to be a teacher. It was looming up on the horizon as the other options fell away. I didn't want to be that kind of teacher, the kind that didn't know what else to do, so they did this thing, this teaching thing, that actually requires much more of a person than that. If they want to be a good teacher, the kind that makes a difference in young peoples' lives. So, why was I trying so hard to devote my life to this school in this way?
Bless Rob Breszny's Free Will Astrology. My horoscope this week was a meditation on refocusing: "It's possible, my dear, that your tendency to overdramatize is causing you to lose focus. Let's trim the 90 violins down to ten and see if maybe that helps." Refocus. Remember. This was a job for now, until the thing that you really want to do that you can't quite yet. The thing where you will make the difference (and incidentally garner more for you in terms of status and in cultivating skill, a role that can't look menial, not even on Tuesdays.)
Or write. Continue to write. Lay down the lines and then the next lines. Tell stories. Some true and some made up.
There are so many things I would rather be doing. This is the thing for now. The job. It's only a job. I will find the middle path. The meaning and the meaninglessness. I will let go and hold dear.
If I spent my life working in a school, I would consider it wasted. I don't even really believe in institutionalised education. Not at least how it is practised where students emerge mostly with an apathetic view of bureaucracy. Imagination is too important. Freedom of self is too important.
Remember this. These kids will thank you for remembering this. Your kid will thank you for remembering this. Your inner kid thanks you for remembering this.
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