There is always a story before the start.
There is always a story before the start.
I don't know how to feel about my trip. I'm separated from it by a sheet of glass. I can see it, I know how I should feel about it, I see how others feel about it. But I don't really have those emotions. Maybe I'm riding the edge of burnout again, I can't really tell anymore. Numbness and rage are my two most loyal bedfellows, and they just cover most of everything else. Grief pries its way through fairly often, otherwise I wouldn't survive the migraines. (Learning to cry was one of the most valuable skills I've learned in therapy.)
I wonder sometimes if I'm doing this trip for myself. I've been talking about it forever, wanting it. But was it just a fantasy of escape? Is that all this is, just the absence of work? I want to do something with this year away that gives me strength and builds colour and vibrancy into my life. Right now, I feel flat and grey. I don't hate things (I do hate things, but they are very, VERY specific) and I don't love things. I just exist with emotions twisting through me once in a while. For example, I feel flickers of enjoyment when I play tennis badly (smashy smashy!) or when I play guitar badly. Time slows down (in the best way) when I watch little E play in that repetitive, exploratory way only 10-month olds can do.
Late last year I realized I say yes to everything, because I honestly just don't care one way or another. I'm not flexible, it just doesn't matter. Of course, I'm drained after 13 years in healthcare; 5 of them in a pandemic, the rest in a system of austerity. The motto "plan for the worst, hope for the best, and take what comes" is etched on every organ in my body by this point.
So the question is, why am I going to Montevideo? Do I really want to go to South America? I don't hate the idea. I would like to learn Spanish again (relive my ill-gained modern languages major). I don't like the summer. Sun, beaches, tanning, hot weather; that is not the trip for me. Other people are imaging my trip and I am recoiling from that image. So what am I going to do? I love the ocean; I hate the beach. Sailing fills me with terror. I've never gone diving. So why am I telling people that I'll be chasing the summer all year? That is their fantasy, not mine. Why do I care about their dreams in that moment? I know they truly do not care how I live my life; the same way I truly, deeply, do not care how they live theirs. The fact is, no one listens anyway. I am frequently asked about my trip to Paraguay.
Maybe my existentialism is showing. Today I learned that my union doesn't want to support my grievance for fair pay. I leave the country in 3 months and now I might be in a fight with my own people about their duty to me. The enormity of the--- you know, I think I'll save my words for the lawyers.
I guess I am, again, surprised at how hard each organization around me commits to the bit. The bit, being of course, that I am not valued. You would think that the time, effort, money, and energy that goes into the making of my job, in my niche, would be worth extending the lifespan of my employment. All they need to do, honestly, is work together. I am showing them a gap exists that swallows people.
The loss of human potential in healthcare is the true tragedy.
Whatever. This problem will be here when I get back. Perhaps by then I'll have the head space be the sharp end of the wedge and tackle the AUDACITY----
I learned recently about philosopher and Catholic thinker Josef Pieper. Pieper argues that leisure is not the absence of work, it is "an attitude of non-activity, of inward calm, of silence; it means not being ‘busy,’ but letting things happen." Leisure, as we consider it (lying on a beach, chasing summer) is "something that has been built into the whole working process, a part of the schedule. The ‘break’ is there for the sake of work. It is supposed to provide ‘new strength’ for ‘new work,’ as the word ‘refreshment’ indicates: one is refreshed for work through being refreshed from work."(1) I've known of Aristotle's meaning of leisure (purposeful flourishing) since my ill-advised philosophy minor, but that was not how I used my time off (protestantism loves that shit and I'll do anything to avoid fulfilling that family legacy). Also, I am so tired, physically, spiritually, and emotionally. All I want to do is lie down and read a book so I can get up tomorrow and slog through it all again.
Maybe this is why this trip feels like an ill-fitting shirt; a year of lying on a couch (I'd never sit in the sun) reading, how is that different from my current life? How is that better? How does that feed me? This year away needs to be about me, not not-work. Who am I without healthcare? Do I like that person? Are there parts of me left, or has this system of wreckage, pain, grief, injustice stripped me down and cannot be rebuilt? B says I should write a list of how I want to structure my day, and what a perfect day would look like on this trip. Sitting down to write that out gives me heart palpitations. Last week, I even started sweating. I am fascinated to see how terrified I am of dreaming. At what point in my life did I learn that dreaming was dangerous?
Maybe that's why I won't let myself get excited for this trip. I'm not completely sure I'll like what I will find.