Tuesday, March 17, 2009
There's never nothing
So I'm in the ladies' today at work, this endless job that I quit and then agreed to stay for weeks and weeks longer. No, this is actually relevant now that I think of it. I agreed to stay because even though I really want to be at home with Hugo every possible minute and really put very little energy into career cultivating, I'm scared to death of DISAPPEARING from the professional world, but only during the moments that I'm IN it. So I take on all this extra crap, and have a plan B and C and Q. Just so I maybe will still be able to work with THIS person later, if I want to, if they'll have me. And cultivate this relationship, over here, so they'll remember me when they have something, etc etc. It's ridiculous, and I watch myself do it and I cringe. It's not ME. I'm so not a networker. I'm a sit-in-the-pub-and-people-watch-er, a have-you-over-for-tea-er. I am an in-tro-VERT.
Anyway, the ladies'. And I have this LIGHTNING bolt of a revelation, it HITS me just like that. You know Harry Potter? And the invisibility cloak? (I know! So 2005! But I didn't like Twilight, so there. More proof that I am behind the times). And how he is always choosing his moments to put the cloak on? To slink around and defeat the forces of evil? It hit me--just like that--that I'm the OPPOSITE of that. It's like THIS--unlike Harry, *I* prefer to wear my invisibility cloak at ALL TIMES, and take it off only when I choose, to control the moments I reveal myself.
And I rushed back to my desk--it seemed HUGE. I wrote a note to myself so I wouldn't FORGET it. It was BIG. There would be a whole big POST about it later. A really good one. Thought provoking. It would help you GET me and everyone like me.
But now that I'm here, I think..umm..that's really kind of it. I have ANGST because my comfort with invisibility is playing a big old game of war with my fear of it. I want to step back but not disappear. I have a (most likely unfounded) impression that I am more VISIBLE than usual now because of my job-quitting shenanigans, and I do not like it. Because for me, being visible is like being naked. Or something. Yawn.
As my great stoner therapist (I should write about him more) once said in response to my anxious handwringing that it would all just BE BAD and there would be NOTHING if I took X, Y, or Z dumb twentysomething risk, Nora, there's never NOTHING. And then he told me to smoke pot to chill out and I did not. Of course there is never nothing! But it was quite profound for me, at the time. There's never nothing. And I should chill out. I do, most of the time.
I never know how to close these posts. I really haven't learned anything except maybe to stop trying to be all Ms. Dr. Shmoozy O'Shmoozer which I sort of knew anyway but that stupid invisibility cloak will be in my head for a while, I suspect, the end. It was quite an image.
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15 comments:
There is never nothing? Hummm. I must ponder on this. My therapist – who by the way has never advised me to smoke pot, though that probably really does have fewer risky side effects than anti-depressants, far more holistic?- anyway my therapist said at my last session…”so what I am hearing is that you want to feel and hear from people that what you do has value.” To which I burst into tears and said. “yes.” That is simple isn’t it?
I get that. As a dyed-in-the-wool introvert, I've had days where I'd love to wander amongst society and observe but not be approached or talked to. Actually, most days, if I'm being truthful. My husband has always been quite good at the networking thing, whereas I have to summon false cheer to even attempt it.
I so want that cloak.
There's never nothing. How much do I love that?
So, there's always something? I like that, as it is my experience that there is. Just when I think that everything is mellow and easy, there is something again. I'll be darned if it doesn't turn out that way every time.
there is never nothing... there is always something... Deep when you ponder it.
really, your proclamation here makes complete sense. Honestly... I think it boils down to control... I struggle with control. Maybe it actually doesn't boil down to control at all, it mearely implies control to me because I struggle with control...
oye.
I'm the same! And sometimes I forget I don't have my invisibility cloak on and sit and stare at people like I think they can't see me. Until they stare back...
As for work v. Stay home with kids...
22 years ago I took the leap and quit to raise my kids full time. I'll never regret. But I thought I'd never get the chance to go back. 5 years ago I took another leap and went back to work--for the same company! And that's been great too. Who would have known?
There's never nothing. One to remember.
I had a therapist who told me there aren't right and wrong choices, just different options.
I don't suppose you have your therapist's number handy, do you?
There is a big difference between being invisible and disappearing. What would be the good of having an invisibility cloak if it didn't mean anything when you took it off?
And thanks for stopping by Chicken Mecca. I'm a big fan of yours - both here and Bean Pot (which is SO up my philosophical alley). I started reading when someone mentioned you awhile back. Jonniker, maybe?
Maybe a stoner therapist would have greater insight. It's worth a try. Or would be...if I was still going to one.
I get that, too. I mean, I get the reveal-ability cloak.
How about this. While I was growing up, I wore glasses, and I always had this feeling like *I* was behind my glasses. My clothes might be sticking out the bottom, but *I* was not visible to anyone.
Then I got a Big Important Job and got married and? I got contacts.
Then I became a mom & went back to glasses and that feeling of semi-invisiblity!
Wait -- this is your blog, not mine. Sorry.
DO NOT WORRY about work. Really. Worrying about work is an east coast thing. You're on the west coast now, and out here they say, "It's all good, dude." It's all good.
I'm thinking maybe I need a therapist--stoner or otherwise.
I actually think your networking for the future sounds pretty good, but then again I'm a pragmatic extrovert.
I think this revelation of yourself is important. It sounds important. Keep thinking about it.
Trying to read in order. Now back above to part II.
I can relate to this because I like to stay hidden 99% of the time and choose when I want to pop out of my hole.
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