Letting Myself be Bored

This transition to the new job has been harder than expected. The transition out of my old job was difficult in itself, but there was something that happened at the three-day mark of the new one that really hit home.

I was bored. Like, really bored. It's the same kind of boredom that hits around this time when I’m on vacation, but I’m not on vacation. This is a permanent change.

Well, shit. I totally, unabashedly panicked when I came to this realization. What do I do with this time? What if I’m always bored like this? What if I just keep asking hypothetical questions over and over until the end of time?

Also, I don’t know how I’m even bored. I’m already up to 18 clients and when I hit 20, I’m taking a break from taking new people. That’s 20 hours of clinical work a week with some admin stuff, but not anything that takes more than 10 minutes at the end of any given day, even when there’s a lot. I’m also busy during my off times. Like, really busy. The shit that I have to do just to live is ridiculous. How did I not make time for this before? Or maybe I did, but I just did it half-assed? I have no idea. But like, doctor appointments, dentist appointments (OH GOD I AM ALMOST DONE WITH INVISALIGN AND I AM SO HAPPY ABOUT IT I COULD SPIT) and therapy appointments. And going to the bank and just all of the little piddly stuff that we take for granted and think will take two seconds until you lump them all together and then suddenly they all take two hours. All stuff that I do now and takes more time than I think I gave it credit for when I had to carve it out of my day to go and do it.

My schedule has changed quite a bit, so maybe that’s something? I go in around 1 (maybe a little earlier) and stay until 7 or 8, and then I go home. And then I teach on Wednesdays and work at ES. I think this is the least busy I’ve been, ever.

My therapist and I have an interesting relationship because I feel like it's part therapy and part consulting at times. She's been through what I'm currently going through, and so (checking in on her comfort level always), I ask her questions about it making it clear that she doesn't have to answer if she doesn't want to.

Her thing with this for me is that I have finally arrived at a place where I'm not looking to prove myself to anyone. I think she's right in that I have to prove myself to fewer people, but I don't necessarily agree that I've arrived anywhere if that makes sense. If anything, I feel less sure of myself now than I did when I left grad school, even. I certainly feel more pressure not just income-wise, but also in the idea that I have to do something with these clients now. Of course I have to do clinical work, that's not what I'm saying, but I now have 18 families I have to show my abilities to instead of just one supervisor. Although, I had to do that before too when I was doing full-time clinical work and it was WAY more families than that, so I don't know, and I had no problem being productive then. I'm puzzled. Maybe it's just a muscle that I have to get back into working full-time because I had an eensy caseload before and now I've got a big one.

I brought up my boredom with my naturopath too when I was talking to her about how the transition was going (especially the "I don't have any idea about timing anymore and what is time anyway, so fuck it I'm not going to take my supplements at all for three weeks" of it all) and she validated and then was like "So, now you have time for self-care." I openly rolled my eyes, desperately NOT wanting the conversation to go to that. What she said to me knocked me off my feet a little bit, though - "The planning part of self-care is not sexy. At all. But it's the most necessary part of it."

UGH. SHE'S SO RIGHT. WHY DOES SHE HAVE TO BE SO RIGHT ALL THE TIME. ALSO SHE'S MOVING OFFICES TO A PLACE THAT USED TO BE AN ICE CREAM SHOP. WHAT THE SHIT IS THAT CRUEL JOKE.

So, now I have to get planning, probably my least favorite activity when it comes to things I have to do for myself. Seriously! The reason I was so resistant to the idea of changing my diet is that it takes planning and that's why I didn't want to do it. There were other reasons (like it's hard), but those were not nearly as compelling as the idea that I didn't want to have to plan out my entire effing week of food. That's just annoying. Like, Send Me Into a Rage kind of annoying.

So, I think this is the next step, now that I've bumped up against it. Become a person who at least doesn't mind planning things. I'm not even shooting for liking it. I'm shooting for tolerating it.

Also the acceptance of the boredom. Though today was free and I certainly managed to fill it up with a shit-ton of grading, so maybe I'm not so much bored, but I just really, really don't want to do the things on my to-do list? Maybe.

Who the hell knows.

Unwelcome Reminders

An alternative title: Why Oat Milk is Delicious Bullshit.

So, this whole gliadin thing and it being the biggest reason of several that I have celiac has been a challenge. The reason for this is oatmeal.

You see, I love oats. Love them. I’ve been eating them my entire life - they were a staple of my childhood, even! When I found out that I couldn’t eat them anymore, I asked my doctor what that meant. Like, no oat flour? What about gluten free oats? Or oat milk? The response was what I was expecting, which was no whole oats of any kind, gluten free or otherwise, but for the rest of the stuff, just give it a try and see what happens.

I hate this answer because it means more playing chicken with my immune system and I usually lose huge. Also, this didn’t make any sense to me; what could be taken out of the oat that would make it so that I can eat it, even if it’s oats still in a different form? I was confused, so I waited and stayed away.

Then I went to a cafe a couple of weekends ago and tried a maple latte with oat milk.

It was effing delicious. It was nice and creamy but not too heavy (like almond milk) or light or sweet (like coconut milk). It was exactly the beverage that I was looking for. It was probably the closest alternative to milk or cream that I’d found texture-wise. I loved it.

If I’m being totally real, I started to react before we even left the cafe. I started feeling a little hot, it was harder for me to walk to the car than it was to walk to the cafe (neither of which were very hard, I just noticed a difference), and then we were driving to go apple picking and I suddenly got so tired that I almost had to pull over and let Rob drive.

We got to the orchard and I was fine while we were outside, better even! Then we sat down to eat and it started to hit me. I swelled up like a balloon and just felt kiiiiiiind of awful. But we still had one more stop to make (I needed a new hoodie) and so we went to get that. As we were driving home, I was like “I think it’s finally time to admit that I’m not feeling well.”

Shit.

I’ve also been eating an excessive amount of dairy lately, so I’ve been trying to get a handle on that without much success. I just can’t quit you, cheese.

Really, it’s just cheese. I made the unpleasant discovery that I can’t have dairy-based creamer in my coffee, which I found out the hard way the other day (AND STILL TRIED AGAIN ANYWAY EVEN THOUGH I KNEW THAT’S WHAT I WAS REACTING TO, WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME), but I’m managing. I’m figuring this out slowly and trying hard not to get impatient with myself if I slip up and really want some maple coffee with regular creamer, but it’s hard. These are permanent changes and I get resistant, even though I know it’s what I need.

The thing about it is, though, those times that my body reacts unfavorably? I was in the middle of feeling like absolute shit from the oat milk and I came to this really startling realization, which helped me feel about 1000% emotionally better about the whole mess that I’d just gotten myself into: this is how I used to feel all the time. Like, 100% of the time. I was constantly a little queasy. Everything was hard, like walking long distances to my car. I was always on the verge of a migraine. Like, teetering on the edge of A Big One. I was always this tired. I would be able to push through it, but I always felt this way. Why I had such a strong emotional reaction to how I’m feeling is for a few reasons:

1. I hated feeling that way and I was afraid that I had flipped a switch and all the work I’d done was for naught (it wasn’t) and I’d feel this way all the time again (I didn’t)

2. I feel this way so rarely now that when I do, I have a stronger emotional reaction to it because it’s no longer my default

3. I had a really strong physical reaction to something I ingested that I really shouldn’t have because I’m really intolerant to it and I’m mad about it. It messes with my internal stuff just biologically.

While I'm feeling better (even though I had a six.effing.day.migraine), the reaction lasted two full weeks. I didn't even noticeably feel human again until a couple of days ago. I had a big migraine for my first entire week at my new job, which wasn’t in itself great (and I don’t blame it entirely on the oat milk - I was pretty anxious about the transition too), I had to go get the tramadol shot to knock it out otherwise I'm convinced I'd still have it (I wouldn't), but I managed. With lots of drugs and tea and peppermint essential oil in the diffuser (which actually kind of worked miracles), darkening my office when I wasn’t seeing clients, napping during those times if I needed to, I managed. If nothing else, I certainly learned that I can’t have oats of any kind.

Now that I have more time and freedom, I’m optimistic that I’ll be able to take the time I need to really get this stuff figured out. I feel good about it.

(I also did the math and if I stay at my current caseload, I’ll be taking a pay raise that is significant. And I still have a bunch of openings. Snort.)

Also there’s a terrible something going around my office and clients and the ER that I’m doing per diem work in, and I sneezed a few times but feel no different, and I’m feeling like that may be the extent of my fall cold. It really, really makes me chuckle. I’ve usually been bedridden at least twice by this time of the season. So maybe I don’t have too much left to figure out, or maybe I do. I’m game either way, and that’s pretty awesome.

Professional Self-Care

Ok. Time for some real talk about mental health.

So, here’s the thing about professional self-care. Much like personal self-care, I don’t do enough. I just don’t. So when one of my colleagues asked me to put in a proposal with him to present at a counselor education conference in Seattle, I jumped at it. This was not FOMOP - I go to this conference every year anyway - and I love beefing up the ole’ CV, and I loved the topic - Simulated Clients in Counseling Skills Class (which I happen to teach and use them a lot). We got an education session, I fangirled because the daughter of the authors of a few of my books in grad school came to it and was like “I DO VR LETS COLLABORATE PLZ” and it was awesome, and just...it was an all around great conference.

I went to sessions about impostor syndrome (which, if you look it up in the dictionary, you’ll find my picture instead of a definition...more on that in a minute), liability, how to talk about sex with your students and supervisees, and how to coach them around leaving space for talking about sex with their clients, and self-compassion and self-care, and mandated reporting, and I listened to a great keynote about passion and work from a great author, and I left so full of knowledge and gratitude. This was all on top of seeing a really great friend and hanging out with my colleagues and just having an amazing time.

phew. To say that my cup refilled to overflowing would be an understatement. I had a seven-hour long flight home to start to unpack it, and what I came to is this.

I’m at a huge crossroads professionally. Huge. Leaving my job was so hard for so many reasons, but I finally admitted to myself just how much I questioned myself and the work that I’m doing and my very competence as a counselor, and that’s why I had to leave. To admit this to myself, I also had to admit to myself that my workplace was toxic to me. Maybe not to everyone who worked there, but certainly to me, and admitting that I could no longer tolerate it was the first step to stopping that internal train of not ever feeling like I’m going to be good enough at what I do enough to feel satisfied.

You know how you have those times that are really hard but you don’t really realize how hard they were until you’re on the other side of them? Yeah. That’s where I am now.

What I was experiencing before I went to Seattle was burnout. I can comfortably call it that at this point. It wasn’t to the level where I couldn’t work, but I came dangerously close. I had been having thoughts of taking some FMLA to give myself some time to rest and get things figured out. I also started seeing my therapist weekly again. I just really needed the support. 

Then I went to Seattle and somewhere in my head, the wheels were set in motion. I made the conscious decision somewhere along the way to leave it all there.

The grief about leaving this job and this team that I loved.

The shame.

The hopelessness.

The feeling that I failed.

The feelings of not being enough professionally.

Just all of it.

I got on that plane home a different person than when I left. My outlook was completely different and I finally felt better. Like, genuinely better. I felt like I’d been carrying a horse on my back that I was finally able to let go.

Better still, I learned what my burnout actually looked like. I have been intimately familiar for a long time with how I experience compassion fatigue (what I affectionately call burnout’s oppositional little cousin), but this was not that. This was bigger and harder to work with.

I also learned that what I need in those times is to talk about it openly. In the workshops I went to, we talked a lot about the costs of these jobs, which doesn’t get acknowledged nearly enough. And because every time I go this particular conference every year feeling as though I am around My People, I felt comfortable enough to internalize the validation I found there, and didn’t realize how much I needed it. I allowed it into those dark places that were difficult to sit with on my own, and just sat with this new knowledge and was able to process a lot of difficult stuff.

Do I still have a long way to go? Yes. I’m realistic about that. But I’m getting there, and that ain’t nothing.

Diet Ugh.

I found this great recipe recently for vegan lemon cake. It’s super easy to transition it to gluten free, so I jumped all over it. I was going to go to the grocery store after work on a mission to get all of the required ingredients and I was going to make it, damn it, because I need some cake in my life as of late.

Truly. I’d kick a puppy for some decent baked goods right now.

Not really, but I really want decent baked goods and I have yet to find any that are not total garbage or something that I can’t eat because of an errant ingredient, like eggs. Usually eggs.

Damn you, eggs.

So I’m in the grocery store on the hunt for these ingredients and I remembered back to my last conversation with my naturopath. She has been trying in earnest to nudge me toward being what she calls a paleovegan. No more meat, no more cheese, and of course, no more eggs.

So I’m in the grocery store and I’m finding it remarkably easy to find the ingredients that I need. I remarked it to myself even.

You know what my very next thought was?

“Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad. Maybe I should give it a try. She made it sound really simple.”

Then next?

“I’m already more than halfway there. I already don’t eat dairy at all outside of cheese, and my meat intake is negligible, and all easily substituted by beans and other things that will fill me up. I think I could do this. I ate that way for six straight weeks and I can’t deny how amazing I felt.”

I WAS TALKING MYSELF INTO IT.

UGH.

WHAT IS THE SORCERY THAT THIS WOMAN USED TO GET ME TO THIS PLACE.

So I tried it for this work week and it wasn’t terrible (I actually felt pretty energetic and fantastic), but it’s not super sustainable for me. It’s a lot of work that I’m not really in a mental place to do. (Talk to me in six months and things may be different.) So, what I’ve decided is that I’m going to find a middle ground.

I think what that’s going to look like for me is being a low dairy (rare cheese instead of multiple times daily) pescatarian. I’ve got to see how my doctor feels about that, but that’s where I am currently. I see her in a couple of weeks, so for now, that’s what I’ll do.

In other news, I start at my new position on Monday. It’s all orientation that first day and I’ll be there once a week until mid-October when I make The Big Transition. I set up my office yesterday and I couldn’t be happier with how it turned out.

This isn’t a super great picture, but I’ll get more on Monday. It is alarmingly clear how much I need some art in there, so I’ve enlisted the help of my very favorite six-year-old to make some that I can hang. I can’t wait! 

I think I’ve finally figured it out.

I operate as a liberal in a family full (but not entirely) of conservatives. A die-hard Democrat in a family full (but not entirely) of Republicans. Politics has come up a lot since the 2016 elections and at times it has gotten super heated, but at this point, I avoid it. Like, get-up-and-walk-away-from-the-conversation-without-a-word-and-no-I-don’t-care-that-we-are-eating-dinner-so-I’ll-be-eating-with-the-kids-thanks kind of avoiding. I’m just tired of talking about politics with people who are only interested in shouting their viewpoints and not listening. (And also now watch as I put myself in the exact position that I just described. I’m aware of the irony here, just in case you were worried that I wasn’t.)

And it’s never the liberals in the family who bring up politics, amusingly enough. Maybe it’s because we don’t constantly feel the need to justify ourselves.

I finally figured out my internal stuff about it and why I react this way. (Snort. It only took three years.) It isn’t because I don’t care. It truly isn’t. And my beef isn’t even with all republicans - just loud Trump supporters, because that’s all who seem to assert their position loudly and aggressively without prompting as if I want to hear it.

The reason why I avoid these conversations is because I’m a pretty empathetic person. I know that if I listen long enough, I’ll start to find their position understandable.

I never, ever want to understand a position like the ones that trump (and his supporters) hold. And yes, I added that parenthetical point because if you voted for him and aren’t now actively walking yourself back and doing what you can to change the tide (and I’m not even talking about going out on primary day and voting democrat - there are tons of other ways), you support what he’s doing. Full stop.

I don’t ever want to understand being able to justify voting for someone like him. I don’t ever want to understand the mental place of parroting back his policies or his rhetoric. I don’t ever want to understand how a person can justify voting for a person who has facilitated locking of children in cages and emboldening people who only want to hurt other people. I don’t ever want to be in a position where I understand, from any angle, hurting people on purpose.

If that makes me ignorant because I’m not interested in learning about that, then so be it. I decided a while ago that trump, his rhetoric, and the vitriol spewed by his most ardent supporters don’t deserve any real estate in my brain. Do they have some? Sure, otherwise I wouldn’t be writing this right now, but I try hard to keep it as minimal as possible. Sometimes it just spews out and I am not entirely able to control it. My way of controlling the square footage that this occupies is by not participating. I won’t reinforce aggression on the part of those with whom I disagree by engaging. People can invite us to a fight all they want - it doesn’t mean that we have to accept it.

Wild Rides

So, these past few weeks have been a roller coaster, frens. I started applying for new jobs because it has felt for a bit now that it's time to move on. For those of you who have changed body shapes in your lifetime, either by gaining or losing a significant amount of weight, whatever the reason, you might be able to relate to what I'm about to talk about (and as someone who has both gained and lost significant amounts of weight through her lifetime, it holds up):

You know how you need to go shopping for new clothes and mentally, you're still the same size as you were before your shape changed? I went into my job search the same way I always have because I still operate under the assumption that I should do that - I'm still green, I'm not as competent as maybe some of these jobs require, and so I need to go for all of it; the reaches, the safety jobs, all of them. This makes sense because while I had to apply for the jobs that I have now, I've been in the same agency for five years. Before applying for this agency, the last time I applied for a job where I didn't know anyone was 2011, before I even started grad school. So, I was still stuck in the "I don't know what I want and also I'm not super competent or confident so I'll apply for everything" mindset, which is actually no longer accurate, and shockingly so. As a result, I started throwing as much at the proverbial wall as I could muster and seeing what stuck. I looked at what might be a good fit and that I might be interested in, and instead of saying "maybe I should call HR or talk to someone and ask the questions that I have" and approaching this job search like a responsible human, I just went for it and put in my CV in three different places: One that I knew that I was a slam dunk for, one that would be a good fit, even if not a perfect one, and a HUGE reach. One of them (the slam dunk) was in community mental health, and the other two were for group private practices.

Right.

That resulted in four job offers: one at my current agency, and all other three, including the huge reach, offered me jobs. Really effing good jobs. Jobs so good that I was like "They're not really offering me this. This can't possibly be true." All of these happened within a couple of days of each other, so I had a good while to sit in utter denial before I had to make a decision, and frens, that's exactly what I did.

To say that was overwhelming (and if I'm being 100% truthful, totally shocking) would be an understatement. I talked to friends, I talked to family, I talked to colleagues (who are also my friends), and I stewed and stewed and stewed. It was literally all I could think about. I was sitting in supervisions and meetings and it was in the back of my mind. I was sitting with clients and it was in the back of my mind. If I decided to leave my agency, how would that impact them? My sense of loyalty to this organization and to my team is pretty significant, and this was not a decision that I could or wanted to take lightly. (Also, who's going to move all of this shit that's in my office? There's quite a lot. That was a very prominent thought.)

When I stripped away the loyalty that I felt to my team and really got down to the meat of where I needed to sit while considering my options, I centered on the spot inside of me where my own values exist. I looked at my values as a person, my values as a counselor, and how that might inform what it is that I actually want. As I struggled with this, I realized that in order to make this decision, I needed someone neutral who knows me well, but also works in a similar field, and that I care about their opinion (that sounds like I'm a little bit of an asshole. I'm fully aware.). I had four GREAT options, all of which I would be lucky to take. My FOMOP had to take a back seat, because I clearly can't take all four, so I had to choose, which I'm horrible at overall, never mind with Big Stuff like this.

Then I knew what I had to do: sit with one of my best friends from grad school, one who will never hesitate to tell it to me straight and help me, if not make a decision, then to at least help me shake something loose. She works in the field, she's known me for going on 6 years now, at various points we have worked closely together, and she doesn't work in private practice or in community mental health (that last one was super important), but still works in the field. She gets it in a way that I need and will be able to take all of the shit that comes with making a decision like this into account, including looking at it objectively because she doesn't work within the environments that I'm looking at. (For the record, I can't even talk to my therapist about it because she used to work at the agency that I'm currently working at. Is she neutral and is her job to help me figure it out for myself? Of course. However, she's also human and this is a part of her history. For the record, she was SUPER excited for me and helped greatly ease my anxiety about it, which is fantastic.)

Friends, let me tell you. You NEED a friend like this in your life. If you don't have one, find one. I talked through all of my options with her. The good and the bad of all of the options, the risk versus reward, the money, the client work, all of it. The conclusion that we came to is "yeah, this is a really hard decision." But I clearly left with more than that, because I woke up the next day and was like "This is what I'm doing." I'm sure the wine spritzers also helped. :)

What I discovered as I have unpacked this whole mess that I had gotten myself into is that for me, it comes down to fear, as it always does. I've seen private practice therapists fail. I've seen private practice therapists go bankrupt. I've also seen private practice therapists do so much good and make a ton of money doing it. Going into private practice is risky and if we do it the wrong way, it's both expensive and disastrous for us, but also (more importantly), for our clients. What I also know about myself is that I could easily, easily have a second master's degree in Avoidance - the amount of stuff that I avoid because I'm afraid would stun you. I'm shocked sometimes that I even HAVE a master's degree, because I was so wracked with anxiety about it going in that I wasn't even sure I could START, much less complete it. Yet here I am.

A little bit of my fear was mitigated because both of the private practices that I applied to were group practices. One rejected about 100 referrals a month, and the other is growing and growing and growing. They both are, really. Both involved full-time clinical work (and by full-time, I don't mean Community Mental Health Full-Time with a caseload of 45-60. I mean four days a week, a reasonable caseload, and the ability to leave my work at work.). As I sat with my values, I started to realize the thing that was infinitely more important to me than the other stuff - that I want to be a counselor. Full Stop.

Has being a supervisor been fulfilling? Absolutely. I have found my two most trusted colleagues in my entire career from being a supervisor, and I know that these women will be lifelong friends and colleagues (and if I can get them to leave too, I have this vision that the three of us will start a group practice called Feisty Ladies Counseling Agency, but that's another story for another day.) I have also experienced being on a cohesive team with some of the most dedicated professionals I have ever met. Seeing the growth in my supervisees and watching them expand their skills and seeing how it has helped their clients has been some of the most fulfilling work I've ever done professionally. So, in short, if I was going to make the decision to leave this team, it had better be for a really good effing reason.

And yet, I knew in my heart that this amazing experience was only second fiddle to being a full-time counselor. The growth we see in the therapy room is nothing short of miraculous sometimes. Sometimes we sit with our clients for sometimes years at a time and see only small growth, sometimes we see growth in big spurts, sometimes we don't see growth, and everything in between. We sit with someone's pain, and we may be the first safe person they actually encounter. If we are able to sit with people in their pain and their growth and their victories and their failures and have it all happen in the safety of the container that we create as therapists, then it's incredibly gratifying work. A colleague once asked me where I found my joy, and it's this. It's not that I didn't find joy in being a supervisor and working with an INCREDIBLE team of people, because I definitely did, but it looks different. Could I help a bigger volume of people in my supervisory work? You bet. But that's not where my biggest strength is, and it's not where I do my most compelling and fulfilling work. As a person, I've always been better at the one-on-one. Indirect work can be difficult because you're not directly seeing your impact. You're not always directly seeing your impact as an individual therapist either, but there's something more compelling about direct work to me.

So, I've finally, finally made my decision and have told the people I need to tell in order to feel comfortable making it fully public. I'm going with one of the group practices, the huge reach. Will I experience some anxiety with this transition? Of course I will. No question. But I think ultimately, it's the right choice. It has also started to shake something loose in me and I have been looking at ways that I can actively pursue further training in certain areas, like play therapy or eating disorders. Plus I'll be able to keep teaching, which was really, really important to me. I was having doubts about being able to continue with teaching after this summer because it was so hectic with two classes, but if I go with the group practice, the flexibility in my schedule will allow for me to teach because I'll be in the office less.

The only difficulties that I see potentially for myself are:

1. I won't get paid right away (which I'm hoping I'll be able to stave off by easing out of my agency and into the private practice in a few different ways and I don't know exactly how it will shake out yet, but it will) - this is only temporary, so it will be manageable.

2. I'm going to have a lot more free time. When I told my therapist that I was making this decision, you know what her immediate response was, I mean, without even thinking? "You're going to go crazy with all of the free time you'll have in the beginning. DON'T FILL IT." (Yeah, after 6 years with her, she's definitely got my number.) I definitely think this is going to be an adjustment. There won't be the constant pressure to produce and if anyone is putting it on me, it's me putting it on myself - I know that this is usually the case, but community mental health is a different beast. But, the thing that I'm the most excited about around this? Yoga classes. Maybe some knitting classes or joining a running club. More time to be active in ways that are meaningful and enriching to me. More time to take care of myself in ways that I really need but can never seem to be able to carve out for myself. I'm already making a list of stuff I want to do and I'm super excited.

But most importantly, I'm ready. Like, Shopping for Chairs and Office Furniture and Toys and Games and Super Excited kind of ready. I go to my orientation on September 16, and I go to pick up my keys on Wednesday and start to move stuff in dribs and drabs and my last day in my current role is October 18. And of course, in the middle of all of this transition, I’m going to Seattle to attend and present at a national conference. NBD.

My timing has never been that great, has it? Oh well. It always works out in my favor somehow. Here I go!

FOMOP

Fear Of Missing Out Professionally has been probably my biggest struggle...always, but especially since like day two of grad school.

My problem is that these amazing opportunities come my way and because they’re so amazing, I have been completely unable to say “this is a great opportunity and I deeply appreciate you considering me, but I can’t.”

Even when I literally can’t. Even when there is no more space to crowbar something in. “I’ll stay up until 2am several nights in a row to help put the finishing touches on a regional conference that I’ve been helping plan for the last eight months, sure!” Or “of course I’ll co-author that article!” or “sure I’ll take on that third class this is only temporary and won’t happen again, right? So I might as well take this opportunity to do something I love since it will only come once!” (Spoiler alert: when you agree to do more, that generally becomes the expectation and doesn’t just happen once. This lesson has smacked me in the face at so many points in my life that I can’t even begin to count them. Feel free to learn from my mistakes and just don’t do it in the first place. I won’t even get into how much we set ourselves up for failure by saying yes all the time. A soapbox for another time, maybe.)

Just wanted to give you the magnitude of the problem so that you can understand the gravity of something I did yesterday.

On Wednesday, I got an email from my research mentor. He’s writing a research design textbook for doctoral students and wanted me to coauthor a chapter.

I have never once in my life said no to an opportunity from this man. Shit, if he asked me to babysit his kids, I’d probably say yes. I have worked with him every chance I’ve gotten, because we just get each other.  There’s some weird stuff going on around him professionally that I don’t understand and try to stay out of, which is great because he and I have enjoyed a wonderful professional relationship for the past seven years. We trust each other a lot and work really well together, is my point.

Side note: was I really finishing up my first term of grad school seven years ago around this time? Weird. ANYWAY.

So I sat with it. And then I sat with it some more. I really wanted to figure out a way to make it work.

It should be noted that I’m going through some Big Professional Transitions right now. I’m not going to say any more about that because I don’t have the first clue what it will even look like, but things are Happening and I’m overwhelmed and my term is ending and I have a final to write and 32 papers to grade and final grades to post and student monitoring forms to write in the next week and a half. Then I have to write the syllabus for a new class I’m teaching. Holy shit is right, fren.

Through all of this, I sat with his offer. In my brain, I tried to find a way to make it work. I looked at the stuff he sent me. I looked at the deadlines he proposed.  I worked through in my brain how I might be able to make it work.

I couldn’t. There was just no way. So I said no. 

For those of you who know me really well and also read this blog, read that again, frens.

This has been a big summer for me. I took two weeks of vacation in July and while I was out, something just...snapped. I realized two things:

1. My professional life does not need to take up so much space in my life or be so hard, and

2. It’s that way right now because of my own choices. No one moved the chess pieces to look like they look right now except for me. My students may have written those 32 papers, but shit. I wouldn’t have this much to do if I wasn’t trying to cram two ten-week classes in this summer. I’m the reason that I haven’t been able to leave my house this summer because I’ve had so much work to do. I’m the reason that I feel like I can’t escape the pile of work. It’s me.

Is that going to change anything in the immediate term? Probably not. But, I truly believe that this summer was a tipping point. I’ve been railing against this idea that we are what we can produce for so long when it comes to everyone...except me. My actions have COLOSSALLY not lined up with what I preach. So, I took another step in the right direction and I am very relieved to say that I did, in fact, not burst into flames. I did not ruin this relationship with this man that I respect and admire just for saying no to one thing. 

Moreover, I will not get myself fired just for trying to scale back my workload or take some time for myself. I will not get in trouble for insisting on a lunch break every day and setting less permeable boundaries around that time. (Yes, all of these were problems before I went on vacation and are things that I’m actively and intentionally working on now.)

One day, FOMOP will be a thing of the past for me. I’m certain of it. For now, I just keep taking these steps and remember that it’s for the betterment of my own mental health at its core, which has to be among my top priorities or I have nothing professionally. (Personally either, really.)