I grew up in a house where, if there wasn't a clear and fairly easy path to an end goal, it simply wasn't done unless it absolutely had to be. I also did not really have examples around me of the kind of success I wanted - or really, much of any kind of professional success. When I was 17, my mother and I had a fight because she insisted I'd never be able to make it in college without food stamps; she didn't understand that financial aid would not only pay for my actual education, it would also pay for me to keep a roof over my head and eat. And she wouldn't listen. She didn't see how I could do it, therefore, it couldn't be done. I was told my plans and dreams were useless because I could wind up paralyzed from a car crash or something before I ever got to my goal. I was told that if I didn't behave, she would make sure successes as an adult would be taken away from me. And despite my forging ahead and going to college and doing what I wanted to do anyway, I have still unwittingly been trapped by the idea that I don't deserve success, that I didn't have the ability to achieve it in the first place, deeply ingrained on my psyche.
And for most of my "college years", I was trying too hard to find myself to be able to give my studies the focus they really needed. I made bad decisions, always thinking I could fix it later, all of it reactionary, all of it short-term thinking. I moved to Seattle with two classes left to finish my degree because my husband had a job waiting for him and we couldn't afford to be in two places at once. Had I actually tried to find a way to stay and finish up (a means wasn't immediately foreseeable, so of course it couldn't happen), it's entirely possible that the rest of that relationship might never have happened. But, I didn't and I came to Seattle before I was ready and now, seven years later, I'm the chick that went from studying complex cultural theories and human relationships to marking your Symphony account "Do Not Call". It's been soul-crushing to force my mind to be so menial for so much of my time. It's been frustrating to face work every day that does nothing to fulfill me, nothing to actively better the world.
I have trouble getting out of bed in the morning knowing that I'm only getting up when I am so that I can ride an hour and a half into a job I hate in a dark, beige hallway with bad air, no natural light and a bunch of people I mostly tolerate because I have to (though not all of them). It's depressing and stifling and I've long felt my mind turning to mush because of it. I have very little need to actually use my mind during the day, and by the time I get home, I'm so wiped out from wasting my life all damn day that I don't exercise my cranial muscle as I should in my free time. As a result, I find things slipping by me that never would have a few years ago and I find my attention span slipping. I feel I have no value at my job; if everyone in our office had a computer, 75% of my job wouldn't exist. Some days, I just can't even bring myself to get there.
Today, I found out that I had missed out on a promotion I didn't want. I didn't want it because it would mean losing a lot of freedom, it would mean working nights and weekends, it would mean managing people I don't like and don't want to spend more time with in a place I don't want to spend more time, and more time doing more things I genuinely hate doing for the simple fact that they are... well, too fucking simple. However, I tried once again, as I have with just about every job I've had over the last several years, to convince myself that it would be a stepping stone, a means to an end, something to pad my resume with. I've been hemming and hawing for months trying to figure out if I wanted this promotion at all, so being told today that I wasn't getting it came as a relief. My boss was right; she said if she thought I cared and wanted it, we'd work it out, but she knows I don't care and I don't want it. She was absolutely right and I am not sorry about that one bit.
But the conversation we had highlighted this existential crisis - the FUCKING RUT - that I've been in for too long. And the more I thought about it, the more pissed I got. Not because I was passed over for a promotion I didn't want - I REALLY DIDN'T WANT IT! - but because I fucked up so bad that got myself in this mess in the first place. I've spent the last seven years feeling like I'm stuck in a really deep swimming pool with no way out because I decided to marry a dude knowing that he wasn't what I wanted (but the adventure we'd have together would make up for that, right?), and move out of state with ONE TERM left to graduate. I was pissed for letting myself fall into the thinking that, since I had no easily visible path to what I want, I couldn't do it. And I'm still pissed to realize that I've applied the same thinking that kept me in the closet until I was 30 to keep myself in shit jobs despite all the knowledge I have stored in my head that I could be using to further both my own life and some of my more political goals.
For years, I have known that what I really needed was for someone to grab my hand and say "This is what needs to be done and this is how we're going to do it." I don't need that for my whole life, I just need someone to tell me where to put my goddamned foot. Where in the hell does the Yellow Brick Road start?! I've known I needed it, but I've also known it would never happen. That's just not something that happens. Nobody does that; we're all on our own and it's up to us to figure these things out by ourselves. What has mystified me is how people actually do that.
My boss, who has known me for sometime and, when she's not my being my boss, she's "my friend Gail" or "Momma", as she calls me her "daughter from another mother", noticed I was becoming increasingly agitated over the next couple of hours after our conversation about me not getting the promotion (though I am still being made full time, which is a good thing because now I'll have health insurance!). I fell apart. I told her all of it - how I fucked myself over with school, how I was stuck in a place I hated with no foreseeable way out, how I needed to pay several hundred dollars I don't have to the university just to get my grades unlocked so I can then take the last couple of classes I need (at least one of which is an upper division course and cannot be taken at a community college) and didn't think I was ever going to get out of this place, that she was right that I didn't want the promotion but was pissed at myself for fucking that up too because at the rate I'm going, it might well be the last opportunity to come my way for a very long time and I felt like I was shooting myself in the foot by making it so clear that I didn't want it.
I need to say that I've never accepted help that would actually further me. I've accepted lots of help over the years to help me just scrape by - help with the electric bill, help getting by while I was out of work, help with an overdrawn bank account. But my education has been mine. I've paid every red cent that's gone to that (aside from what is automatically subsidized by the tax payers) and being that I'm $40K in debt for that education, I'll continue to pay for it for some time to come. It has never been an acceptable idea to me [for me] not to have a degree, and I was determined to do that on my own. I might need help with rent once in a while, but dammit, my education was MINE. But I failed. I fell off track and got myself stuck and haven't been able to get back on track because I haven't had the resources to do so.
I've also never had much of a support network. I've always had people around who were willing to help with the simple things - the electric bill, the rent when I was out of work, an overdrawn account. I've had people - even my parents - who have said they were proud of me for pursuing my education. I've had offers of help for school before, but my pride would not allow me to accept help that would actually better me, get me further. Those that have been willing were misguided in their attempts and offers. I've needed more than moral support to solve this particular problem. But nobody ever just grabs your hand and tells you what to do and then tells you they're going to make sure you can do it. That doesn't happen.
At the end of our conversation today, my boss grabbed my hand and said, "You don't know where to start, but I do." And I was told I don't have a choice. I was told today that, as of this summer, she's paying my debt to the school, and paying for the math class I need for the degree. I was also told to go out and find people in the field I want to be working in and tell them I have a few hours a week available that I want to work for them for free so I can start building contacts. She told me "We're going to get you on the right path so you don't have to do this anymore."
And then when I was talking to another friend about this, he told me to get that stuff taken care of and he would then help me with the other class, which I might actually have to go back to Ashland for a term to take.
Then I talked to another friend and she helped me figure out who I need to talk to about what to get the ball rolling.
Today, someone grabbed my hand and told me "This is what you need to do, and this is how we're going to do it." Not just one someone - three of them. Three people saw me at the end of my rope over the last aspect of my life - this job that's trapped me and tortured my mind and wasted my life for far too long - that I have not been able to change on my own, and not only told me how to get out, not just that they're going to help me do it, but that I don't have a choice. It wasn't an offer, it was an order. I have no idea if I'm ready for this, and frankly, every time I go back to school it gets scarier and more stressful. But nobody ever tells you what to do, and they certainly don't offer to unlock the door so you can go out and do it. So, ready or not, it looks like I'm going back to school, and it looks like I'm going to get to do what I've wanted to do for years upon years.
For those who don't know, I studied cultural anthropology with a primary focus on American food culture; specifically, fast food vs. slow food, cultural connections between food and people and the human relationship with nature through our food, food sharing and cultural dynamics as affected by or utilized through food; the cultural difference between Mom cooking dinner every night and Dad running through the drive through on his way home from the office; the way changes in how we eat and what we eat have affected the rest of our culture. I could talk for hours about how the drive-thru burger joint has changed the way we interact with each other and conduct our daily business. But also, because of my background with the family farm and cooking (not to mention personal interest and a taste for politics), I have spent a lot of time on the military industrial food complex - GMOs, Monsanto, pesticides and the history and cultural impacts of "advancements" in agriculture.
So what in the hell would I do with all this, you might ask? It probably seems pretty obscure; for many, food is just food. We need it to survive, so we eat it. Some people are better at making it pretty than others, but whatever. Food is one of those things that all humans have in common. We just don't have a choice about that. But we do have a choice in what we eat and how we come by it and that is where I come in. The point of all of that stuff up there that I've spent so much time on is to re-educate people about our relationship to food and through it, to the world and each other. To teach people about the sustainability (or lack there of) of eating, and how to eat in a way that is individually, culturally, economically and ecologically healthy. To teach people to cook and grow food within their own cultural context; the backyard vegetable garden, an education about food itself and the ecosystems involved with it. A study in permaculture and cultural agriculture (a one year certificate program) will most likely follow once I've finished the last few requirements for my BA, which will allow me to come at food from an angle, with a body of information, that most people won't get talking to their neighborhood foodie. It will allow me to get paid to help organize things like community gardens and local food programs with the cultural dynamics of the locale in mind. It will also give me clout in grassroots political work against companies like Monsanto.
It will allow me to make food and nature my whole life, finally.
Today, not one, but three people, grabbed me and said "This is what needs to be done, and this is how we're going to do it." I'm overwhelmed and exhausted and am having to kick my pride right in the ass (and right to the curb). Then I came home and told the love of my life about my day and she was so happy for me, she even said she'd help me with my math class (thank the gods she's a very patient woman!). I spent the first part of my day sobbing angry, frustrated tears, and the second part of my day crying just from being overwhelmed by the people in my life and the road ahead of me. I feel like they're giving me back my life and the power of it has literally taken the breath right out of me.
OH. MY. GOD. I have SO. MUCH. work to do. Wish me luck, for I will be needing it.
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