Reframing

I have a couple of blog posts in progress about my experience at Bard, which was exhausting but deeply satisfying and will, I think, have long-term influences on my teaching, but they're still in progress because it's been a hard week of disappointment and feeling drained, and I'm only now on the path to recovery.

First, I was really wiped out from the week at Bard, and then spent the weekend with friends, so my energy was already depleted when I started teaching summer school on Monday morning. I never love this summer gig -- it's the only time I teach strictly for the money, and it turns out that money alone is not enough to make the hard work of teaching feel worthwhile -- and this summer I took on an additional class at the last minute. So even more money, which is good (and the gig does actually pay extremely well), but also more prep and more classroom time. I finally realized that, in teaching 4 1/2 hours every day, I'm actually teaching a full hour longer than I ever do in my longest day at FGS and doing so on a more compressed schedule. Now, this of course says a lot about my relatively cushy life at FGS, but it also explains why I've been crashing every afternoon when I get home. The only thing I managed to do this week other than teach and sleep was to get my haircut on Thursday afternoon, and even that I only managed to do because I knew the week was almost over. Honestly, this feels like a lost week, and I can't afford to "lose" two more weeks like this; I have to be able to get something done in the afternoons. Hopefully a weekend of rest will give me renewed energy for the next two weeks.

I also managed to injure my right shoulder at Bard. At first I thought it was just a sleeping injury from the terrible, thin mattress on my crappy dorm bed -- apparently not sleeping well is part of the whole Bard experience -- but last night it occurred to me that I'd done a huge, exhausting garage clean-out two days before I left for Bard, so it's possible that I strained my shoulder then (and goodness knows it felt like I was straining everything else; I don't do well at physical labor), and then sleeping on a crappy mattress just compounded the problem. Anyway, I've spent the week wincing in pain every time I raise my right arm, which has taken a toll on my emotional well-being.

I also figured out my teaching schedule for next year (which I won't officially get until right before school starts, but by mid-summer one can reverse-engineer one's schedule by poking around in our course management software program), and it kind of sucks, and I also suddenly was struck by the conviction that I'm not going to get that course release after all and that my anticipated perfect year of teaching only three courses and writing the FGS book is not going to happen after all. Now, this "conviction" is based on nothing more than a gloomy hunch and the fact that it's now mid-July and that classes start in less than six weeks and that the later we get into the summer the harder it will be to find someone to teach that class I'd be dropping. So maybe I'll be proven wrong. But I still felt the sense of disappointment keenly, in anticipation.

And, finally, it was my birthday this week. Having a summer birthday means that I inevitably treat it as a moment of reflection on the old year and the new year to come -- I mean, maybe everyone does this, but because I live in terms of academic years, my birthday always feels like my own private New Year's Day. And then, on my birthday-eve, D. came home with yet another piece of bad news from her disastrous MSW program. At this point it's not clear whether she'll continue in the program next year or not; everything is completely up in the air, and pretty much all of the possible outcomes are bad in various ways.

And I completely lost it. I broke down and spent the evening crying, and then on my birthday morning I stood in the shower and cried and cried. And then I cried again that afternoon. And again the next morning as I drove to summer school. The crux of the matter is that, as of this week, I'm now 45 years old, and this is really not what I hoped or expected my life would be like at this point. I'm actually happy enough in my own career (other than hoping for a change of pace for next year with the course release), but I really thought that by this point in my life I would have a partner who had an actual full-fledged career, and I had this moment of realization this week that maybe the way things are now is just what life is like when one's partner is brilliant but unconventional and a bit erratic; I keep waiting for things to settle down for her, but this week I looked at the twelve years we've been together and realized that this horrible business with her MSW program is just a variation on the professional difficulties she's had for all of the years I've known her. She just doesn't seem to do well in institutions, most of which aren't known for their friendliness to innovation and diversity, and yet she's never been able to pull off a remunerative career outside of institutions. So many people admire her for her intelligence and insight and use her ideas and look to her for advice and wisdom, and yet somehow every position she's been in has ended, often badly. In many ways I've been fooling myself for years now, thinking that as soon as she gets over this hump, or the next hump, or that other hump, things will settle down for her and I won't have to be the primary breadwinner and have all financial responsibility on my shoulders. But this week I was struck with the knowledge that there will probably always be another hump, and another institution that at first welcomes her new ideas but then quickly decides that she's more trouble than she's worth, and on my salary alone we will never have enough money for me to relax and feel secure, and this is just how our life is. And so I cried and cried.

And actually I have teared up again writing that last paragraph, but I want to get to the title of the blog post here. On Thursday morning I was snapping at D. because she (a) had misplaced her keys and had to borrow mine, and (b) had lost a check that my mom had sent, which meant both that we didn't have the money in our account and that my mom was annoyed with me yet again, plus (c) a million other things were just wrong, wrong, wrong, and I was feeling very grumbly at how this is the way that our life *always* is. And then, as I drove to summer school crying, feeling disappointed in everything under the sun, I had a moment of clarity: even in my despair I recognized that this sense that nothing at all was good was a distortion of reality. Clearly many things ARE good, but I was in a mood to look for disappointment, which meant that disappointment was all that I was seeing. Now, there is plenty to be disappointed in, but there's also still much that is good in my life -- indeed, maybe MOST things in my life are good -- and I wasn't paying any attention to the good at all, almost couldn't see it because the disappointment was looming so large.

And this is when I remembered something that D. has remarked upon many times, that the background work of one's brain, the questions one asks oneself regularly, affects one's perceptions of the world. And I'd spent the week, or actually in many ways almost all of the past year, asking myself, "And how is this new situation/fact/person/experience failing to live up to my expectations or ideals? In what ways is this going to be yet another disappointment?" And, no surprise, it's been a really hard year, with one disappointment after another. Now, I don't think that there's any amount of reframing that would turn D's MSW experiences this year into something good, but apparently having a miserable time in one's MSW program is pretty much par for the course, and I think that the extent to which those horrible experiences of hers have unsettled my own sense of self and of my life was not at all inevitable, was in fact the result of the ways I've been thinking about them. I had built up her MSW program as something that was finally going to "fix" our lives, which made the resulting disappointment all the harder to bear, but what if I hadn't thought of our lives as something that was broken and needed fixing in the first place?

I haven't worked all of this through yet, but I did resolve that day to start changing the background work of my brain from one of disappointment to one of gratitude. You know, the first year at FGS, I was so grateful to be working in a fabulous place after the nightmare of St. Martyr's that I used to sing on my way to work in the mornings. When I look back on that year, I remember how many really hard things were actually going on in my life that year, and how anxious I was so much of the time (something that a couple of colleagues remarked on the next year, when I was calmer and more confident), yet the mere fact of my job and its supportive environment made me so happy that gratitude was really my predominant emotion that year. But it's been a long time since I drove to work with a big smile on my face, goofy at the thought of the day ahead, even though in so many ways my job is even better and should be more fun now than it was in that first year. Somehow along the way I've forgotten to be grateful for what I have in my life and have instead focused more and more on what I don't have in my life.

So this is the reframing project I've now embarked on. I expect that it will take a good bit of deliberate awareness to shift things; mental habits are remarkably persistent, I find, and it's with some dismay that I realize that I first blogged about this back in 2005 and yet keep forgetting about it. Just last night, only on Day 2 of the reframing project, I found myself slipping into bitterness as I lay in bed and contemplated my life, and I had to mentally shake myself and think very hard about something positive to change my mood. I'd like to think of some sort of tangible reminder, some talisman that pushes me toward mindfulness in this task, because when I'm not paying attention I'm going to slip back into old habits. Any suggestions are welcome.

Okay, enough emotional workout for today. It's a beautiful day here in Adventure City, and I'm thinking of going kayaking on our local river; I'm not sure that's the best idea for my gimpy shoulder, but I think it might be a boon for my mental and emotional tranquility. And later this weekend I'll give you the Bard scoop. (Here's the preview: Take one of these summer programs as soon as you can!) In the meantime, I'm setting my brain on *gratitude*.

Comments

[Bardiac]

/hug I'm sorry you've felt down, especially near your birthday. By the way, Happy Belated Birthday.

But, I do think you've come to two important realizations in this post. First, our partners are what they are, and we either accept them and enjoy our relationship, or we change it. And frankly, D sounds so very wonderful in other ways, that I think that's a good choice. Second, yes, how we think about things matters. Your job is great. You have a home, good health, projects and intersting stuff to do, a fine partner, and so on. So while it's normal to get down sometimes, trying to recognize just how good things are is also good, and likely to make you happier.

[Laura/Geekymom]

Oh, I'm so sorry to hear of your feeling down. Been there done that, for sure. It sounds like you've come to some good realizations and hopefully, that will help you focus, or refocus in the coming year.

I wanted to comment briefly on your shoulder issue. I had a similar problem, and it turned out I had strained the muscles around my rotator cuff. I went through a bunch of physical therapy that involved strengthening those muscles and all was well with the world. Plus, my arms looked great! :)

[Janice]

*hugs*

If it helps, Mike and I are in situation much like you and D experience with regards to employment, training and crushed hopes. He's working on his third degree with scant hope he'll actually be able to get full-time employment.

We've come to realize that we're a team and we have to look at what I earn as the result of a team-effort. We also value what his part-time schedule allows us to do, for instance, having someone available at all times to support special-needs Youngest, in particular.

It's not easy for him and I'm sure it's not easy for D. But rather than waste time and energy on anger and what-ifs, working to reframe your life to think how lucky you are to be sharing so much positive energy right there in Adventure City with a good job for you and a nice house for the two of you and a really strong bond that links you with D. Well, that turns things around, doesn't it? And I have a similar list of what makes me grateful in my daily life.

[What Now?]

Thanks, you all. And it's absolutely true that D. is wonderful in so very many ways; I sometime lose sight of that fabulousness by focusing on the few negatives, and this is where the reframing comes in. Indeed, the very fact that my reframing project is grounded in her wisdom speaks volumes! We talked this afternoon about concentrating our energies on the many great things about our lives -- hence the kayaking this afternoon (which I'm glad to say didn't hurt my shoulder, although I think I strained my wrist a little bit in compensating for the shoulder's gimpiness), and tonight's home-cooked meal that we've worked on together. There is much to be thankful for, indeed; it's just a matter of remembering that fact.

[abarlekho.wordpress.com]

Your reframing is inspiring. You're so right that the question we have as our default influences how we see everything. It's a good reminder to be mindful of what's going on in the present moment rather than allowing that residual to brush everything.

I hope your arm feels better soon!

[Jackie]

This might be a suggestion you've already discarded, but keeping a gratitude journal--one I write in each night before I go to sleep--has made a big impact on my own sense of gratitude towards my own life. I thought I knew just how much (and have blogged about it), but then in the loosey-goosiness of summer, I've let habit drop out of my life, and in the past few days, have realized just how much I miss it. Taking a few moments at the end of the day helps me focus on gratitude, but also helps me take each day as it comes, without borrowing too much from the days in the future, and in looking over the pages, I'm reminded how much I have in my life. Some days are easier than others to feel grateful for, but that is part of the process.

[Flavia]

Catching up late, but just wanted to say I'm thinking of you & D--and drawing my own inspiration/useful lessons from this post! Much love.