Last spring, after the fourth year of not enough work to make ends meet, I decided that I was going to leave academia. But I need to back up. This is a long, complex story, and I have to leave a lot out, but you need to know what happened immediately before to understand why I decided to leave. Fall of 2021 was one of the darkest periods of my life, personally. I had to turn down in-person classes I had been offered because of the new strain of coronavirus. I had to cancel a writing retreat I was incredibly excited about; the first big thing I had done for myself in years. Mike and I had to cancel our tenth anniversary plans. I had to pull my son out of kindergarten and homeschool him. It felt like everything I liked about my life had been taken away from me. With this level of heaviness, I felt an almost mania about needing to wrest back some control over my life and manufacture something to look forward to. I decided to give my biggest life goal a shot—I was finally going to try for my PhD. As I started the process of researching schools and narrowing in on a specific field of study, I felt a sense of wrongness about the whole thing. Something felt off. Like I was trying to make something happen that was not right for me. It was quite disorienting, chasing a lifelong dream and feeling such a deep core of unease about it. And then there was the time. I did not have enough time to devote to this process. I started remembering the levels of stress from graduate school, the stress and intensity of workload that landed me in rehab halfway through. I worked deep into the night and early in the morning the first time around, juggling two jobs to make it happen. Could I handle that again? Ten years older, with two small kids? Could I treat myself that badly in the name of following my dreams? Did I even want to? These thoughts led to other thoughts. Why was I so invested in a system that clearly did not want or need me? Did I want to kill myself for five to ten years for dismal job prospects? Did I want to spend the rest of my life begging for a job? It started feeling like being in an abusive relationship. I had to continually perform at the peak of my abilities with no way of sustaining myself, and still, it was not enough. I was not enough. Did I want to spend the rest of my life feeling like I was not enough? There is more to this story, of course. More realizations dawned on me. I began to feel exploited at work, which took a lot of the passion out of it. It is hard to maintain love for something that does not love you back, and at times seems to actively not want you around. And when you no longer love something you are only doing because you love it, it stops making sense. My job did not pay enough to even rightly be called a job anymore. It was a hobby. Did I want to sacrifice my whole life for my hobby? I mean, I have other hobbies, too. I have other things I love, other things I want for my life. It is hard to describe the level of devotion I felt for my career. It was a calling. When I decided to go to graduate school in the first place, I knew I wanted more than anything to be an English professor. But the problem was, I did not know what that actually meant in real life. Being an English professor in real life did not even remotely resemble what it meant in my head. When it sank in that the job I had sacrificed so much for did not actually exist, this is when I knew I had to leave. I was in the process of losing my optimism for life; I did not want to become an embittered, angry person. I needed to leave and start something completely new. Clean break, fresh start. There is more to this story—there always is. I have spent the last year considering my next steps and beginning the painful experience of healing and moving on. This year has been full of loss, pain, tears, resigned acceptance. I don’t know if I will ever feel whole again, because I lost an important part of myself. I have changed so much I do not even recognize myself anymore. This is a cliched metaphor because it is so true—it felt like I have been in the underworld the past year, transforming, wrestling with the ugliest parts of myself, and now that I am emerging, I am a fundamentally different person. It is not a bad thing at all, but it will take some getting used to. I am no stranger to loss and sorrow. But somewhere in the caverns of my soul, I am essentially a hopeful person. I have lost a lot of my naivete, but in its place is a strength of which I did not know I was capable. I can be grateful for the years I got to teach, to be so very good at something I love. Affecting the lives of thousands of students—what a gift. I will always have that. I got to live out my dream, even if it was not what I thought. There is more to this story. And I will keep telling it. But not right now. It’s not time yet. I am starting something new.
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]]>I am not taking myself as seriously anymore. I mean, I am. Let’s face it, I’m a Capricorn. But I’m trying not to. If everything is a constant bid to better myself, it is a contest in which I am always the loser and the prize always sits on the horizon, barely distinguishable in the haze. I’m not even sure what it is, that prize. So fuck that noise. I’m tired. I have two children now. The last time I sat down here to write, I only had one rambunctious one-year-old. Now I have a two-and-a-half-year-old and a seven-month-old (surprise!). I fell asleep one night and suddenly it’s been years since I’ve written. Time does that when you have children. When you’re a working parent. When you let your art take a backseat. When. When. When. After my first child turned one last year, I ramped up my work on my career. Ten hour days became fifteen hour days; I went back to school for a certificate that would enable me to teach reading to adults; I got pregnant; I spent most of the school year sick, between the pregnancy and my son’s daycare germs that arrived mechanically at our doorstep every two weeks. Job interviews came or they didn’t. I teach writing, but I’m not sure I know how to write anymore. It feels uncomfortable: the words caught in my throat, like chunks of half-chewed carrot stuck back there. It’s okay, though. I tell my students that writing is a practice. You don’t have to be good at it. You just do it over and over and over, an unending series of sessions that never take you to the destination, because there is no destination. There’s just a McDonald’s on the side of the highway, two screaming children in the backseat because the toy in the Happy Meal is the wrong one, and— …wait. Where was I? I have two children now. One is four-and-a-half and one is two-and-a-half. One is learning to read and write, and the other is speaking in complete sentences, like a complete person. It’s been years since I’ve written. Time does that to you when you have children. When there’s a pandemic and you downsize your career to care for said children. When your art disappears like pixie dust you can’t quite see dusting your fingertips. I put off my work for days at a time to care for my children. Oh, the guilt over their hours spent sitting in front of Disney Plus while I shoot off harried emails to students, scan grading sheets, remind students of upcoming assignments. I blow off a day of grading to take the boys to the park, so they can climb some trees. Childhood is short in metaphors I would have laughed at five years ago, before they became the truths by which I navigate all my choices now. The essays sit, ungraded. I am not taking myself as seriously anymore. I am tired. Fuck that noise.
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]]>I have been sober eight years. That is long enough that now I have to count to figure it out. How many years has it been? Well, how old is the cat? She was born between then and my sister’s wedding, so… Sometimes I count on my fingers. I don’t go to meetings anymore. I stopped a few days before the baby was born last year, and just haven’t been back. This wasn’t a conscious decision. My precious little free time doesn’t seem to land when I have the freedom to go, and anyways, drinking sounds like the last thing I want to do. I don’t want to have to start all that shit over again. I still remember how many months it took to believe I could live without alcohol. How many years it took to be in a room with alcohol and not feel like I was about to shake myself out of my skin. How many more years it took to be okay at a bar. The almost decade it took to be okay having alcohol in the house. I don’t know if I could do it all again, the slow slog of getting clean, so I won’t even try. I have sober friends, and I know I can talk to them if I need to. That’s enough for now. Though a cliché of working motherhood, it’s true: I have no time. That’s why I’m writing this a month and change late. I piece together fragments of time and call it good, but it’s not enough for writing beyond cryptic notes on my phone’s note app. A sm post come to life. This was a season of moths. Writing. Sigh. This I miss more than the meetings. But in spite of this, I did mark the day’s passing. On September 30th, I ate an ice cream sandwich. It doesn’t sound like much, but it tasted heavenly. I stopped eating ice cream when nursing, as the baby had a dairy allergy, and I never got around to eating it again. This September 30th we were camping, and there wasn’t much I could do to treat myself. So chipwich it was. That was enough. The sounds of the ocean’s smoothly rolling static and the smell of the lightly salted air were enough. I have a lovely boy. A lovely husband. A family who cares about me. This is enough. I don’t ever want Amico to know me that way—the way I was when I was drunk. I want my sobriety to be a fact of his everyday life, each and every day until the end. Never a need to check closets for empty bottles, or to furtively catch a whiff of my breath, or to even ask the question. Is she…? This me, this sober me, is the real me. I want to be real every day from now on. Real me stumbles over my words. Real me isn’t that confident, but I’m becoming more so every day, tiny bit by tiny bit. Real me is not very cool, but that’s absolutely fine. Real me gets really big feelings, and sometimes explodes with them. I wasted so much time pretending, trying to hide. The emotions got stuffed down, hidden at the bottom of a sea of vodka and red wine. Having a child makes me want to waste approximately zero more days—no more hiding, ever. I got sober for me. But if there was any motivation to stay sober, it comes in the form of a wavy-haired, bouncy little boy who holds my heart in his tiny hands and the future in his deep brown eyes.
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]]>it is murky though I rub at my eyes it doesn’t help because I am submerged in fact which way is even up did I dive down here myself why is it so hard to move where am I why am I what happened I knew but I didn’t know there there it is sludgy muck but enough to touch my toes a quick squelch a bit of pressure almost effortless because there is no there there am I moving again the murk remains but yes it’s dissipating granules sifting away shapes take shape shadows ahead that loom like either whales or unknown beasts of the deep
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]]>fold yourself up like a wee origami box delicate and lovely pink azaleas sketched on only the exterior once you’re as wee as you can make yourself fold yourself in half again and again and again until we can’t see you especially can’t hear you you may threaten to burst but don’t and remain pretty and easy and light
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]]>I haven’t had much to say the past few months. I have had so much to say the past few months. Sometimes it comes pouring out of my mouth like ectoplasm, provoked by the social outrage of the day, or just the day-to-day drama of being a human woman during the 21st century. racism sexism gun-violence police brutality the donald democratic primary friendships self-worth money everything Or I suppose I just imagine it that way, a film of unholy outpourings, because pregnancy has cautioned me to hush. If I were to express thoughts or feelings I would surely spiral into madness. So I say nothing. I have been hyperaware, yet this has not served me. I sit with the awareness, absorb it, and don’t know what to do with it. The lesson of pregnancy has been to live with constant discomfort, and thus to remain silent. Feeling often like a skittish horse, sensing movement and threats I have no business engaging with, often leaves me unable to sit in my skin. Unable to write. So I wait for the moment to pass, self-soothing with warm baths and the balm of time. My rage recedes as an outgoing tide, and my anxiety froths about in my blood until it too subsides. I haven’t said a word. – – – Any time I contemplate taking for myself, a purloined moment to read for pleasure or tap at this keyboard, I push aside in favor of What Needs to Get Done. What Needs to Get Done includes reading up on labor and delivery and how to raise a non-racist white male in America; setting up the diaper changing area and deep cleaning the bathroom because the good lord knows I will not be doing this once the baby comes; going to prenatal yoga so I can ease the unrelenting hip and leg pain and taking a nap because I was awake all night for no good reason at all. So I don’t say much. I don’t write much. It is Not What’s Necessary right now, and I have pared down that which is Not Necessary until I’ve whittled away my favorite qualities in myself: stripped away, raw and emotions bleeding through like sap. This means that the baby has taken over my life in ways I’m not entirely comfortable with.Yet, I remind myself, I didn’t decide to have the baby for my own comfort. I am not the person who gives herself up for her children. Yet that’s exactly what I’ve done. – – – This version of myself is also ruthless in ways I’ve never been. I must admit, I like this change. Usual Me treads softly, avoiding people’s bunions and corns. I care for your sore spots and don’t challenge you. Pregnant Me doesn’t give a fuck. Don’t get me wrong–I don’t want to hurt your feelings. But if you’re being a dumbass/racist/sexist/ignorant prick, I bring my axe with me. New me has liberally used the unfriend/unfollow/block button with more license than ever before. This baby has made me learn to care for myself, and by extension himself, in radical ways. This is the person I have always wanted to be. It’s all thanks to this wiggly ball of unknown infant in my belly. – – – I don’t suppose I’ll ever get the old me back, and right now I’m okay with that. Sometimes I’m not, but as I slowly recover my voice and how to use it, I look ahead without any fear. This is the key to using my voice. I’ve been searching for it since I started writing, but for some reason it took becoming silent to learn that soon, I’ll know how to roar.
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]]>The chasm between us widens With every sip you take I’ve always been separate, though Stalking silently Through this life It’s not you, it’s me Splitting through at the center Over something so ordinary It’s hardly worth mentioning Except until it is So I stay on my side of the gap And not bother you with me This fractured human With too much human Who walks alone Apart
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]]>Raise your candle so we can see Your heart gazing through the flame Lift the cup to your lips in prayer A communion of ecstasy Ride the back of uncertainty Though it tries to shake you off I’ll meet you at the journey’s end And embrace you with fervency Night may darken too soon of course You may count on nothing else But keep the hope in your heart lit full For it’s there we find our source
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]]>I don’t feel like a mother yet. Some people feel like they’re born to be mothers; I was never one of those people. My desire for children was more complicated than that. We felt the baby’s first kicks at week eighteen. It was pretty surreal, to feel that faint flutter of life for the first time. After a large meal consisting of burgers and milkshake, what felt like delicate bubbles popping began to tickle my full middle. My husband, his hand serendipitously on my belly for an affectionate pat, felt it first, even before I did. This doesn’t surprise me. “I just felt it kick!” he exclaimed. “No, you didn’t, that’s gas…oh wait! Oh! Now it’s kicking!” The baby’s been rolling around and bopping my bladder, my abdomen, and whatever else is in there for about five weeks now, growing gradually stronger with each week. He gets especially active after I’ve eaten something sugary, or after coffee. He loves it when I drink coffee, and this makes me smile every time. I can tell that he sits at the right side, as my growing midsection swells more there, his tiny feet kicking downward and to the left, exploring his new continent that is me. We discovered the baby’s sex at week nineteen, that unmistakable little protrusion telling me that I would be the mother to a little boy. My eyes widened at the screen, the little arrow the OB/GYN pointed at the pertinent anatomy. All I could say was, “Wow.” “Congratulations! It’s a boy!” she chirped. “Wow.” Did I know how to do this? What did I know about boys? What did I know about raising them to be men? I think I was in shock for at least two days, wandering around like a lost tourist in a foreign country. Most of the time, if I’m being honest, being pregnant has been a certifiable nightmare. The initial nausea that prompted me to eat every hour or so, causing unanticipated first trimester weight gain; the insomnia that caused me to awaken at four a.m. on the dot for months, unable to fall back asleep; the perpetual cold I keep catching like a round of bad luck at the craps table. Walking, once my favorite pastime, has now become an ordeal of struggling to catch my breath and limping along as my tendons groan in sharp protest. Rolling over in bed? Forget it. Once I’m in a position, I’m stuck there until I haul myself out of it, wincing, at dawn. I always thought I’d be one of those super-healthy pregnant women who gained the minimum amount of weight, exercising as regularly as ever throughout. Ha. Like learning how to be a sober alcoholic, this new phase of life is all about letting go of expectations. Dealing with the physicality of being pregnant is, I’m sure, part of the reason the reality of this pregnancy hasn’t sunk in yet. Who can focus on imminent delight when they cough so hard they accidently pee their pants? When their clothes no longer fit? When simple, everyday activities like going to work feel Herculean? Right after my friend Sean died was when I felt my first moment of love for my baby. The previous three months were wrapped in a shroud of nausea and wondering if the embryo would stay put. While I wept for Sean inopportunely on the freeway on the way to work, I felt overpowered by a monumental urge to protect my new life, to bring him into the world Sean was leaving. Though I haven’t told anyone this, that’s when I knew I was having a boy—when I opened the floodgates of grief for the spirit of my friend departing the world. How’s that for some serious woo-shit? But most of the time, I feel confused. Who am I going to be when he arrives? When will I find time to still be myself, as self-contained as I am? What will happen to my career, my dreams, to which I’ve been devoted for more than a third of my life? Am I going to be miserable in my new role being a tiny human’s caretaker? Am I going to love it so much I’ll abandon myself? Will I regret the decision to become a mother? What will this do to my marriage, my friendships? Will I still recognize myself? I’m pretty positive many impending mothers feel this way, but they certainly don’t talk about it on message boards, which are basically just forums for joy. There’s no room there for uncertainty. Therefore, when people ask me, “Are you excited?” I always answer, “Yes,” because I’m learning in casual discussions of motherhood there is no other answer. Nuance you save for your spouse, close friends and the whirling Charybdis in your mind. Stay in there for a few more months, little guy. Though I don’t feel like a mother yet, I already want to meet you. I’m not certain about myself, but I’m certain about you.
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]]>I sit here on the couch, and I don’t know what to do. I had planned to use the pool at the nearby gym, a respite from the unrelenting heat. But I forgot what I needed for swimming. There are my goggles right there, right next to me, where I set them after pulling them out of the cupboard. What else was I going to do? I can’t remember. Then it hits me–I will need to change my shoes. I need to be wearing flip-flops. Flip-flops for the pool, ones that I won’t mind getting all squishy and squeaky with chlorinated water. This dress is okay to wear, but something else is wrong. I can’t remember. Though I can’t think of anything else, I can’t actively think of you either because of the fuzziness, but you are there. You are creating the fog that has crept over my brain. I cried on my way to class earlier, listening to songs that reminded me of you. A funeral procession, a rarity on the 605 freeway, slowed the traffic, and the tears poured from my eyes at the sight of the orange stickers on the cars, the police escort, the limousine all following the car up front, the one that seemed like an omen reinforcing everything I knew about life and what comes after. My tears became weeping, then wailing. It’s not fair, I cried out, like a little child, knowing for certain that life is not fair and yet feeling the need to say it, to claim it, for myself. I bet you didn’t know how often I cried for you, not that I would have ever told you. Now you will never know. Can I live with that? I don’t know. I need something else. What is it? I can’t remember. Oh yes, bathing suit. I don’t know if my bathing suit fits anymore. It’s been a couple of months since I last wore it. Whatever, I don’t care if it’s a little snug, I need to be in the water. I need to feel its cool embrace, the way it makes me weightless, the power of my muscles slicing through the surface. I need to work my body to give my mind a rest. The bathing suit can’t be all. I must be forgetting something else. I paddle through the muck enveloping all my mental function. However did I make it through class today? I probably said a bunch of embarrassing stuff to the students. I don’t really care at this point. What was I thinking, going to class like that, the day after you died? I don’t always make the best decisions. But you know that, don’t you? You probably know more than you let on. Knew. I need to get this all down, get it all down on paper. I reach for the laptop. The urgency smacks me in a way it hasn’t in months and months. The time is so short, and there’s so much I don’t remember. Words and images and smiles all fighting for their space in my memories and I can’t keep them all. I have to get them down before they disappear. I can’t let you disappear. Oh yes. A towel. I’ll need a towel.
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