Twenty-seven years' worth of psychobabble

I've never been terribly ambitious, but at one time in my life, certain people seemed to expect a lot of me, so I sort of became ambitious. I thought up some Impressive Things To Be and went around telling people that one day I would make it happen. Well, it wasn't quite that simple. I really believed that I aspired to these things. I was smart. I was capable. Why not? I certainly wasn't going to loaf around at some boring desk job for years on end waiting for something to fall into my lap. As if!

I had never ever wanted to be anything other than a writer. Sometime in high school I realized that "author" meant "Top Ramen seven days a week", so I set my sights on Journalism. That was writing with a paycheck! And the very first goal to reach on my way to White House Press Secretary or Pulitzer-winning reporter was a successful stint at my college paper.

I bravely marched into the college paper offices the first week of my freshman year and timidly asked how to become a staff writer. The Big Kids (oh, they were so smart! so cynical! so tough!) shuffled me around until I found myself in a small group of freshman wannabe reporters, staring wondrously at the poor upperclassman assigned to tell the freshmen what to do. Her name was Fiona and she intimidated the crap out of me. Red hair, cool clothes, a crisp manner that bespoke her many years of journalistic experience. She matter-of-factly explained that we would all need to write three to five stories under some kind of "contributing writer" byline before we could be considered for staff and with that, we were all unceremoniously given assignments. My very first assignment for the college paper would be about the dorms giving away free condoms in the lobbies that weekend.

I vaguely remember writing this story. Talking to the people sitting at the tables heaped with different kinds of condoms, writing down all the brands, researching some kind of stupid awareness week. I handed it in a few days later and I'm pretty sure that story was never published. At least, I didn't bother to keep a copy of it. I only remember sitting in front of a computer for hours, trying to figure out how to make my pile of information the least bit interesting. I was bored to death, terrified of Fiona, my editor, and desperately wishing they could just make me a staff writer already so I wouldn't have to endure the whole humiliating proving myself process.

My next assignment was to visit the dental school and find out about their new simulation equipment. For this story I would have to actually pick up the phone and schedule an interview with the dean of the dental school and oh, the thought gave me a horrible terrible stomachache. I dreaded scheduling that interview, I dreaded hiking down to the dental school and having to act like I knew what I was doing. I didn't want to have to talk to anyone. I didn't want to investigate anything. I could not muster up one ounce of regard for the dental school and their fancy new equipment.

But I made that phone call and I conducted my interview and I took my tour of the dental school, because that is what reporters do, and this is what I was going to be when I grew up. If I couldn't hack the college paper, I certainly wouldn't make it on the city paper. I wrote up a story I could be marginally proud of, sat next to Fiona as she ripped it apart and put it back together and I dutifully cut it out of the newspaper when it was published that week. I received a lovely note from the dean of the dental school, telling me that they hadn't always received favorable press from the college paper, and how wonderful it was to see such positive and exciting news about her program this week. Fiona told me I wasn't half bad, just needed some practice and gave me my next assignment. But before I set up my interviews, I fled to Fellow Bridesmaid's dorm room and started to bawl.

"I CAN'T DO IT!" I blubbered. "I CAN'T!"

Poor Fellow Bridesmaid had absolutely no clue what my problem was. I just sat there, frozen, my entire future melting before my eyes. I had never felt so lost. I told her how I felt, how bored I was writing newspaper stories, how much I hated having to call and talk to strangers, how sick I felt every time I had to walk into the communications building and climb the stairs to the newsroom. And I really did feel sick. It was an awful terrible feeling. I told myself I was just nervous, that I couldn't let the older students intimidate me, that I just needed to stick it out a while longer. But I couldn't. I just couldn't.

"So quit!" said Fellow Bridesmaid, brightly.

I stared at her. For all my dread and revulsion, I had never considered quitting. Quitting meant quitting. I'd sucked it up and played that last year of hellacious high school basketball- I certainly wasn't going to quit this. Not the thing that would set me up for my Future. What would I tell people back home? That suddenly I wasn't going to be a World Famous Journalist? That I gave up my dream because of a few cold calls and a features editor who had a mohawk and smoked weed and could probably crush a dozen frightened freshmen under his steel-toed boots?

Fellow Bridesmaid probably saw quitting as a chance to try something else, or try again later. I saw it as the spontaneous combustion of my entire world. I bawled some more, she patted my hand and tried to think of nice things to say. A day or two later I left a quick message on Fiona's voicemail telling her that my schoolwork was beginning to pile up and I didn't think I had time for the paper anymore.

It was years later- YEARS- before I stared at a heap of research and statistics and court testimonies on my desk, stuff I had to miraculously transform into a Position Paper, and said aloud into the empty office, "GOD. I can't STAND writing about stuff that is TRUE."

Now. We all know THAT is a big fat lie (see: this entire website) but at the time, it was a huge revelation. I hated writing about things that were real! It wasn't that I hated to write and didn't want to be a writer and couldn't hack being a writer, I just didn't want to write about anything that existed outside of my own brain. And when my boss at the time was trying to help me find a new job (because as much as he drove me crazy, he was a kick ass boss who still invites me to lunch) he would suggest all these "writing" jobs. A job in DC writing policy papers. A job writing copy for the city. A job higher up in our organization condensing industry information and distributing it. And to all of these jobs I said, "No, no thank you, that's not quite what I'm looking for," and he gaped at me like I was Krazy, because didn't I want to be a Writer?

I can't tell you how many times I've done stuff like this. I am an absolute champ at telling myself what I will do and how I will feel about something, without having any regard for what I actually want and what I actually feel.  And every single time I have struggled with anxiety, it's because something bubbled up. Something appeared and said, "Hello silly girl! You thought you had me licked, BUT YOU DON'T!" The writing thing- I am so incredibly proud of myself for figuring this out, even though it took me till last year to admit what kind of writer I really wanted to be. Someone told me this disregard for how things may affect you could be called "the optimism of youth", which is not necessarily a bad thing, but I've always called it "God, you were such an idiot." And after all the work I've done to be Easier On Myself, I am surprised to realize that I still think of it that way. God. I was such an idiot.

In my case, anxiety is not just wacked out brain chemistry; it notifies me that I've ignored something significant. It's a pretty sucky way to be reminded, in my opinion, but it forces me to go back and figure things out. What did I forget? What did I skip over? Where did I not pay attention?

This time? I'm not entirely sure. I have some ideas. They have a lot to do with the person I was when I couldn't fathom quitting the paper, the person who could not imagine getting married at 23, the person who would be so disappointed with the life I have right now, even though I honestly can't think of anything I'd rather be doing. I worked so hard to get out of that place. I spend so much time being thankful I'm not that girl anymore, I've forgotten to forgive her optimism of youth, to be kind about the fear and dread she had about failing and disappointing people.  I think of her scornfully, with disdain, with massive eye rolling. I have no grace for her whatsoever, but I have to find some. I have to remember that she had no idea how much she would love the life she has now, that the failures wouldn't be as soul-crushing and world-ending as she imagined, just the kind of detours and missteps everyone has growing up. She had no idea how good it would be, and I can't keep letting her pipe up from the backseat to interrupt what is so wonderful and normal and safe and mine.

Comments

[orangepaas]

Huh. I never thought of it that way, but I can definitely say I struggle with the same. exact. things. What would "valedictorian" me think of the "25 year old" me married and about to have kids? Or even *thinking* about dropping out of her graduate program? Scandalous.

But it's not about "that girl" and her outdated expectations. It's about you and me NOW. Good luck with this. *hugs*