Work-life balance
what up next
I have just 20 minutes before I hit the road to meet my favorite daughter for lunch in Scranton. I danced like a teenager last night and made a delicious breakfast and journaled this morning. And now I want to write this blog post, this moment of decision making, as I consider what kind of activity—or activities—I want to try out to give a bit of focus to my time outside of work.
Ready? Here’s the list.
- Watercolors and other fun painting. I keep watching this one TikTok painter who makes painting look super fun and therapeutic and easy, and it super duper appeals to me. She seems more into the process than the product, though a lot of the end results are pretty awesome. I’m not necessarily artistic, but I enjoy doing artsy stuff as long as I’m not judgy, and I think it’s really healthy for me to spend time on things that don’t come easily and to accept imperfections.
This one would feel good, I’d have something to show for it, and I already own almost all of the stuff I would need to do it, so it’s free and easy to do whenever I want. - Pickle ball. I’ve been hearing a lot about this activity, and I like that it would be social and get me outside and keep me active. I suck at sports in general, so it’s kinda like the painting in that it would challenge me to get into something and accept that it’s good to do, whether I’m good at it or not.
It’s a higher bar to get started. I would need to figure out where, with whom, how. I would need to buy equipment, learn how to play. I’m interested. But maybe I’ll give it a minute before I fully go for it. - Horseback riding. There are stables near me that offer lessons. This one is fully outside my comfort zone, and that’s what appeals to me—I think I will feel really good about stretching myself and learning something completely new.
I think this is kinda like the pickle ball situation. I think there’s a very good chance that I’ll get into it, but I might give it a minute to work up the energy. It also requires a monetary investment. - A book club. I already have a book club in NEPA, and I went to a couple library nights but I wasn’t a huge fan of the dynamic. But the problem here is that I don’t know many people outside of my work place. I could put a call for interested participants in a Facebook or Nextdoor community group, but there’s a huge chance I’d end up in a book club with people I’m not super excited to interact with.
Sorry if I sound picky about people here. I love almost everyone if I’m having a lighthearted conversation during happy hour, and I 100% love those times and get a kick out of people. But my current book club has such a wonderful dynamic of mutual support that I have high standards.
Maybe I’ll figure something out here. But it will probably take a minute to figure it out. - A project that would give my outings a focus. I’ve been thinking that I could do a series of posts on fun places to visit, local hidden treasures, walking trails, breweries and wineries, etc. I’m not sure. If I’m going to do something like that, I need to be all in for it to work. I’ll let it simmer on the back burner and see if it’s ever ready for moving forward.
- Boxing. There’s a boxing gym not too far away that has classes. It really appeals to me—anything that builds up strength and makes me feel like a badass tends to appeal to me. And I really prefer classes to just working out on my own. The gym is a bit pricey. And it’s kinda inconvenient—I’d have to be really good at motivating myself to get there.
A real possibility. I think either boxing or pickle ball or horse back riding will end up being next, after (or overlapping with) painting.
Or maybe just lots of hiking and kayaking if I can figure out how to transport my kayak this summer now that I have a smaller car.
My time is up. Time to head to NEPA. And I feel excited about the choices I have and the life I’m living. ❤
crocus
gray rainy day
meetings pull me from my screen from my clamoring inbox
move me from one indoor office space
outdoors
across concrete walkways and down chained sidewalks
head bent beneath my hood
beneath my exclamatory blue umbrella smattered with brilliant owls
to a conference room space
inside the administration building
horrid it all sounds horrid except that umbrella
horrid gray rainy meetings screen clamoring inbox indoor office concrete chained bent conference administration building horrid meetings meetings screen inbox meetings administration ugh ugh horrid ugh meetings screen horrid ugh
EXCEPT IT’S NOT
the balmy air
the connections the help the hard things with a gentle note the rallying the laughter the dark times the dark times together the stretching reaching the connecting the connecting
the bouncing between doorways in the sweet suite
the navigating
the firm path the guidelines the care of one another the crosswalks the clusters
THE CROCUSES
building as verb
meeting as verb
people around a table
a gray rainy day
pathways
bursts of yellow
something blooms
we take note
we return to the growing business at hand
reading The Unwritten Rules of Managing Up by Dana Brownlee
One of my colleagues / friends / mentors / confidants recommended this book to me. Steve Lem is serving as Interim Associate Dean during my first year as Dean in a College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. Steve and I don’t just do our work; we also have meta conversations about leadership strategies, interpersonal dynamics, and how we can help our entire university to work more effectively in the ways we approach our own roles and help our office to function better. So when he talked about this book, I put it on my list of things to check out.
Steve said some of the terms in the book might seem a little cutesy, but the ideas are solid. I’m a fan of not taking ourselves too seriously, so I’m cool with the cutesy.
Today is a snow day and I decided to use the morning to go through my inbox (which occasionally is a hydra with multiplying heads; I used “schedule send” so almost everything I’m sending this morning will go out at 4:00pm so I won’t get more emails back while I’m in the midst of cleaning that inbox out….thank you to whoever taught me that trick….).
I’ll be using the afternoon to work on my own research. I’m in a heavy-work period right now so I will do either research or drafting a promotion letter this evening. Don’t worry. I’ll also take breaks, do a workout, goof off. It’s Friday, after all, and a snow day. I will find ways to play!
In the midst of all that, as I have a food break (pancakes with strawberries! yum!), I opened the digital version of Brownlee’s book. It looks like it will be helpful for me to think about my own leadership style, and I think my end goals are to be a) thoughtful about ways I might want to adjust my style and b) more explicit about my style with others. I think identifying my leadership style more clearly, in practical ways, may be especially helpful for my chairs and for my immediate dean’s office team.
I won’t finish the book right now. But I’ll chip away over time.
***
Take away 1–the book has advice to offer me not just as a leader but also as a subordinate
My immediate boss is the provost, and I’m lucky because she’s a strong and effective leader. The book offers advice for working well with strong leaders, and it all seems smart. The original is way better than my paraphrases, but I’m not going to extensively quote, so check out the actual book if you want better quality.
- build trust relationships
- be easy, not a pain
- do super good work in whatever role you occupy
- figure out how your boss likes to communicate and adapt to that
- be honest and brave when talking to your boss, but do so in the right time and place and using appropriate rhetoric
- anticipate and prevent problems
- do stuff to lessen the boss’s workload…and take on jobs that no one else wants or is willing to do
Take away 2–framing and communication are everything
Any kind of “us vs. them” framework in the workplace leads to poorer relations and less effectiveness. I say that regularly in my current leadership role. I get frustrated when colleagues approach challenges as if we are playing a game of Risk, building empires and toppling opponents. I’m more of a fan of identifying a challenge and seeing ourselves as partners on addressing the challenge. That doesn’t mean we will agree or see things in exactly the same way, but it does mean we will listen to one another and do the best we can to move forward in smart ways, even if not everyone’s needs/wants are 100% met.
Brownlee also writes about how easily unspoken expectations can result in problems. If we want certain behaviors, we need to make expectations explicit, not hope people can figure them out on their own. I think I am usually good about this one, but I sometimes assume others are on the same page or assume that I understand others’ expectations. Occasional miscommunications might be unavoidable, but I think the idea is to minimize these unnecessary conflicts as much as we can.
Take away 3–the “difficult boss” behaviors I am most prone to
Okay, I’m going to start off by actually identifying the “difficult boss” behaviors that I am not likely to exhibit. It’s so easy to be hard on ourselves, to see all our areas for growth without noticing the things we excel at.
I am not: overly temperamental; sneaky; a proponent of busy work; resistant to change; self-absorbed; competitive with others (except when I play board games!); chaos-inducing; negative or pessimistic; full of unreasonable expectations of others; a shit-stirrer; incompetent; a micro manager; or disempowering.
Guess what? I went down the whole list and decided I don’t fit any of the “difficult boss” types! Hahahaha. But now I’m gonna give all of us a dose of reality.
I do have areas for growth I am super aware of, and I think they fit in Brownlee’s “difficult” categories in ways that might not always be obvious:
- I sometimes overwork.
I do this behavior less than in the past, but “overwork” can also mean that I’m doing others’ work for them, not delegating enough, not communicating enough with others about what needs to be done, not organizing responsibilities among my team members in a clear and explicit way, and so forth. I don’t completely suck, but this one is an ongoing area of growth, for sure. - I am still learning how things work at my university.
I don’t think I’m “incompetent” at all, but I am regularly aware of policies, procedures, past practices, and so on that I don’t know as well as I would like. I also am constantly learning more about the thirteen departments and thirty+ major programs my college, and I don’t know all the faculty and staff in my college, which makes me sad, but I don’t know how to correct that one. - I sometimes struggle with my emotional attachment to my work.
My work role is part of my identity. Education matters deeply to me, and I care (too much at times) about what others think of me, so sometimes I have trouble shutting off the spiraling voices in my head. I also internalize others’ emotions in ways that can be a form of self-sabotage instead of a tool that can help me be a thoughtful responder to people and situations. But I am way better at focusing on doing good work and letting things go than I used to be. So yay for gradual improvement!
My interim associate dean has been super helpful in his feedback to various situations that have arisen (he has regularly said after a challenging meeting, “That went great! We are doing things we have never done, and that conversation really moved things forward”; that commentary helps my framing a lot), and he also models a separation between his work life and his emotional state. That’s one of the ways he’s been a mentor to me!
I also appreciate the Brene Brown approach: Pay attention to what a select few people think of me, the very few people I can rely on to give me honest feedback. And then, when I know better, I do better. - I am sometimes overwhelmed with the volume of work.
This one seems related to all three points above. And I am also doing my best to approach work in organized ways so I don’t lose track of things. That’s an ongoing project. - I sometimes undervalue my own judgment or opinion.
I came back and edited this post to add this area for growth because I was thinking about it this past week. If others have set something up in a certain way or pitch a certain preference, I tend to accept it, downplaying a part of me that might see a better way to do things. This attribute is sometimes helpful for collaboration, for prioritizing what really needs attention, and for being a low maintenance person who doesn’t create work for others.
However. I’m in my role for a reason. I need to take ownership of decisions in my area, and, as long as I’m being smart and thoughtful and making sure I have the relevant info, I need to assert my opinion so we do things well as often as possible.
I’m also going to add that these areas for growth are very particular to me. Other people could struggle with the exact opposite things. Often it’s about striking a balance, using my default habits in moderate ways that are helpful to me, my colleagues, and my university….but not taking my habits to extremes that are detrimental.
I gotta end here and get to my research. My pancakes and strawberries are long gone. But I’m reading ahead a bit (I’ve only read the Intro and Chapter One! yikes), and I like what I see. “Managing up” isn’t about who controls whom; it’s more about being aware of styles so we can work better as a team within existing hierarchies. I like that. As someone in a middle management position, I really like that.
right message at the right time
A couple weeks ago I had a really good lunch with Leslie and Amy in the middle of my workday. By “really good lunch,” I mean I was in excellent company. People who are open, honest, kind–they are my kind of people, and I try to hang out with such folks as often as I can.
Soon after, Leslie wrote an insightful and reflective blog post and shared the link on FaceBook, and that led me to purchase the book The Next Right Thing by Emily P. Freeman.
And that leads me to this morning. As I ate breakfast, I read Chapter 5 about being open to following a path based on small signs rather than knowing the entire way and end goal and so forth, a chapter that made me remember my own blog post about driving in the fog and trusting I would get where I needed to be (a blog post my colleague-friend Julie reminded me of recently because that’s a lesson I need to hear on repeat).
And then I read Chapter 6, and this is the part that I was like YES. This is what I need to hear, right here, right now.
All beginnings, no matter what they are, hold elements of both joy and heartbreak….Don’t be afraid to be a beginner. Be relentlessly kind to yourself.
-Emily P. Freeman
I have a week left in my current role, Associate Dean in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, and then I’ll be Interim Dean, a role that carries a lot more responsibility and leadership. I want the role. I’m excited about it. I think I’ll be good at it. But I am also a beginner in the role, with a lot to learn. That can be hard.
Honestly, I think I’m better at accepting learning curves than a lot of people, partly because I’ve readily done things that I’m not naturally good at, like learning dance routines or tae kwon do or how to skip rocks. I look and feel foolish as I learn that kind of thing, and I’m okay with that. I think I’m awesome for enjoying the learning. When it comes to work, I have more confidence and ability, and I think I’m pretty patient with myself as I figure new things out.
But I guess the other piece, the other reason for me having some anxiety as I become a beginner again, is that I went through a period of massive upheaval and change just a few years ago with divorce and new jobs and moving several times. Not to mention my kids growing up and my mom dying. I think I’m holding onto some heartbreak that is reactivated by new times of transition, even when the transition is a good one.
I lost some trust in myself during those times of change, too.
I feel my anxiety in my body and in my thoughts. I’m doing a lot of bracing myself and a lot of questioning every moment, every movement.
I visited my therapist Michele a week ago and she helped me with some advice for morning routines and some ways to reframe. I guess what I’m adding on to Michele’s advice right here, right now, is what was sparked by those lines about beginnings. And saying what’s going on with me, well, it helps me respond to myself. Here’s a bit of my inner dialogue, giving voice to my spiraling fearful mind and answers from my reassuring pep talk wisdom side.
Spiral: Change is scary.
Answer: Yes. And you can do it well because you have both faced and embraced change with grace so many times already.
Spiral: I’ve made mistakes in the past. What if I make more mistakes?
Answer: Oh, you will make more mistakes. And you will be accountable and you will grow, and this is the way of life. You have done it before and you will do it again.
Spiral: What if people think I’m doing a terrible job?
Answer: What people think about you is not your concern. Your concern is doing the work well and living the mantra of ongoing improvement, with that improvement coming from gentle self-correction, not debilitating self-criticism.
Plus, haven’t you noticed how many awesome people you’ve surrounded yourself with?
And don’t you realize that most people are far more concerned with their own lives than with yours? Chill.
Spiral: What if work eats me alive the way it felt like it was doing before I became a full-time administrator?
Answer: Your key words for this period of your life are integrity, intention, and boundaries. You have been learning to live them. This is your next great challenge. You may not get it perfectly, but I think you’re ready to figure it out.
Spiral: This is going to be hard.
Answer: Yup. As Glennon Doyle says, “We can do hard things.”
Spiral: I think it’s also going to be fun. Interesting. With lots of laughter and moments of joy.
Answer: Wait a minute. I think you just took on my role!
Spiral and Answer: *laugh together*
***
Here’s my mom being a bookmark to help me along my journey:
And here’s Chris Hemsworth because he inspires in his own awesome way:
reading “Negotiating Your Next Job” by Hannah Rile Bowles and Bobbi Thomason
I’m back! doing another reading for the HERS Leadership Institute. This one is available online from the Harvard Business Review.
So I like to anticipate what I’m going to read before I begin, but I already read the first paragraph or two, and this article is not about salary and benefits, even though that’s what most of us associate with “negotiating” and “job.”
I’m also annoyed right away because the authors make a HUGE claim and I really want references for that claim. They say, “studies have shown that women’s ’80 cents of the dollar’ is explained more by differences in men’s and women’s career trajectories than by differential pay for doing the exact same job.” I looked into wage gap research several years ago because my son and I were talking about it, and it’s true that it’s not a simple answer, but this throwaway sentence without a citation is super annoying. Anyhow.
They go on to say it’s important to negotiate “the scope of your authority and your developmental opportunities” as well as “workload” and stuff like “location” and “travel requirements.” Part of this is connected with remote work possibilities. My personal preference is to work some days from home and some days on campus, but my current position is 100% on campus. It’s not terrible, but some days I think about how I could be a better worker at times if I had a bit more flexibility. For example, I recently went back and forth between my home and the town where I work three times in one day–2 hours altogether–because I had a vet appointment that day in the middle of my work day. It would’ve made more sense (and I would’ve missed less work) if I had worked from home that day and commuted 40 minutes instead of 120 minutes. The point of the article (and of my example) is that negotiations are about ways that a worker’s needs can be met while the needs of the workplace are also met.
This article is also about focusing on your ultimate career goals and figuring out the pathways that can lead you there. At this point, I’m hoping to secure a permanent dean position that includes tenure so I can make a difference at the administrative leadership level and return to a faculty position for the last few years of my career before retirement. I think it’s important to have a plan, but I also think it’s important to be open because sometimes things shift and move in unexpected directions. So I have a plan, and I’m also open to whatever happens.
Some of the article is about finding as much info as possible about salaries and decisions, norms for a particular organization, and so on.
I don’t know why, but I’m mostly not feeling this article. It’s almost like it’s too general to be useful to me. For thinking about my possible career futures, I like the book Designing Your Life by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans. To figure out how to negotiate an offer in higher ed, I think it’s best to talk with people in higher ed about it. Most people I know kinda hate that part of things. But talking with others about it definitely helps, and, oddly enough, Twitter conversations can be super helpful because you get info from a whole host of colleges and universities.
I still have a couple more readings to do today and tomorrow, so I’ll be back here, blogging away as I engage the material.
It ain’t New Year’s but I’m making resolutions
I don’t know if you ever feel kinda frustrated with yourself because you want to do certain things but you just keep not doing them.
No? It’s just me?
lol
That’s how I’m feeling today. What I want to do is have more structured days so it’s not such a challenge to prioritize exercise, writing, and meditation. I just made playlists on YouTube to help with the exercise and meditation part. I can start the day with short meditations and some tiny exercise, like 20 jumping jacks, and I can do a 15-30 minute exercise session or yoga meditation in the evening. I often walk at lunch, and I can do that more regularly, too.
Should I be using the word will instead of can?
I’m already decent about writing daily because I drive to work early and write in my car in the parking lot before the work day begins, but I want to do longer chunks of writing at times, and I’m a bit stuck there. I’m thinking if I do 5 minute chunks in the evening, that will be enough–I’ll either do those tiny chunks often enough that I get somewhere or I’ll do the 5 minutes and want to keep going at least some of the time. And anyone can fit in 5 minutes of writing, even me.
So that’s the plan.
And here’s an addendum to help me shift my attention. I’ve been keeping my phone by my bed because I wake at 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning and do the daily Wordle, Hurdle, and Waffle word puzzles online and then (try to) fall back asleep. I love those puzzles, but I’m thinking that’s not an ideal habit. And if I move my phone away from my bed, I’ll be less likely to look at email and social media while still in bed in the morning. Hopefully I’ll eventually sleep through the night again. The exercise and meditation may help with that.
Okay. That’s my draft. I’m going to start it this evening. I’ll see how it goes and edit or revise as needed. Or maybe I’ll flub it up completely. But the only way I’ll know how it goes is if I try!
one day after another after another after another
How do I feel by the end of the day?
Are you sad because you’re on your own?
The Beatles sing about getting by (and high!) with a little help from my friends, and that’s definitely true of me. (Well, I haven’t gotten high since my college days, but the night is still young.) These days, many of us are living in a socially distanced and sometimes lonely world.
It is not only the pandemic that makes my current life situation drastically different from anything I experienced prior.
For most of my adult life, time felt like a precious commodity that I just didn’t have enough of. My favorite pastime was reading and napping in the sun, a solitary activity of drowsy escapism. As my kids were growing up, if they fought or did something wrong while I was in the shower, they were in big trouble with me; I fiercely protected my 15 minutes of daily uninterrupted solitude. My favorite Mother’s Day was the year my husband took the kids out so I had a whole morning of gardening without anyone distracting me. Don’t get me wrong: I love my kids. Time to myself was just scarce. I appreciated every moment I got.
Work didn’t help. My first full-time faculty appointment began in fall 2005 when my kids were just turning 3 and 6. That first semester, I combined my professorship with administrative work, and I never stopped. I worked summers, weekends, weeknights, first thing in the morning, in the middle of the night when I couldn’t sleep, holidays, and while on vacation. I worked on my phone and on my laptop. I never pulled all-nighters as a student, but I did as a faculty person. I had trouble shutting off. When I had a stretch of open time, I felt obligated to be productive. There was always more to do. I could never fit enough into a day.
And now everything has shifted.
***
My 18-year old son lives with his dad, and I miss him terribly. We usually have dinner at least one weeknight, and he stays with me every other weekend, but he’s 18. That means he goes to school and works and socializes and spends most of his time away from me. This would be the case even if he lived with me full-time. Next year he’ll be going away to college and I’ll see even less of him.
My 21-year old daughter is living with me right now because of the pandemic and her university going fully online, so I get to see a lot more of her than I would otherwise. We have dinner on Mondays, and sometimes we spend time together on a weekend, but she’s 21. That means she goes to school and works and socializes and spends most of her time away from me.
Don’t get me wrong: I’m happy my kids are becoming young adults with lives of their own. It’s just that I suddenly have extra time on my hands. I feel like I’m living that Harry Chapin “Cats in the Cradle” song! lol…except I’ve actually spent a lot of time with my kids, so not so tragic.
And work, happily, doesn’t fill up my open time the way it used to. I shifted from a faculty-chair position with a lot of flexibility in my schedule to a full time administrator working Monday through Friday, 8:00-4:30. My prior “flexibility” meant I felt I should always be working since there was always more to be done. My current structured work schedule means that when I’m at work, I work; when I’m not at work, I don’t work. Sure, if there’s a special event outside of the typical work hours or something pressing that needs to be done, I gladly fill my responsibilities. But, in general, I have gaps of time in the evenings and on the weekends.
Now, instead of trying to fit more into the day, I find myself wondering how to fill the time I have. Some evenings, I find myself scrolling mindlessly through social media or playing a game on my phone that leaves me numb in body and mind. Some evenings I force myself to do one activity after another–wash the dishes, paint a picture, repot a plant, fold the laundry, paint my toenails, and on and on–in hopes that I can escape an overwhelming blah feeling. On two occasions I ended up on a dating app just to distract myself. For the record, I’m not against social media or dating apps or any of the other activities I’ve used to pass time. I even believe seemingly meaningless play is a wonderful thing and I plan on never giving that up.
But I am against frittering away my life, looking for something to fill some kind of void, building a suffocating cocoon of distractions. I’m still in the process of shifting.
***
I don’t have perfect answers for adapting to a changing sense of time. It presents a sort of existential crisis for me, along the lines of what is my purpose and time is running out and that feels paralyzing. And the surplus of time has also made me—a person who grew up in a big family and who has always been surrounded by other people—lonely. That’s at least part of what I’m coping with.
But I do, of course, have a few things I’m learning.
ONE: It helps for me to recognize and name feelings such as loneliness, grief, and anger. Instead of distracting myself from feelings, I’ve been trying to experience them. I spent a lot of years using work to distract myself, so I have some catching up to do. But I’m getting there.
TWO: Instead of asking myself “How will I fill this time?” I can ask myself, “What do I want to do with this gift of time?” The former question frames time as a problem, a challenge, something to slog my way through. The latter question presents me as an actor with interests and desires.
Too often, I’ve been passive, letting life happen to me instead of shaping my days according to my priorities (“Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans“). I’m trying to pay attention to what I care most about. I want to use my time to reflect those cares. Note that this point is related to Mark Manson’s book, discussed here; it’s also something my friend Kelly said on the phone to me the other day, which brings me to my next point….
THREE: In the words of the Beatles, I get by with a little help from my friends. When I find myself engaged in mindless activity waiting for the minutes to pass with a terrible sense of blah, often calling someone–a friend or relative–gives me momentum to shift my mood or my activity. This blah feeling is different from feelings such as loneliness, grief, or anger because it seems stultifying; experiencing it makes me feel more stuck, whereas experiencing other feelings makes me feel more alive and free.
Just the other evening, I was wrapping gifts and ran out of tape. I had started with 4 tape dispensers, not realizing that they were all partial rolls, so the discovery was quite a blow when I finished the last roll mid-gift, as you can imagine. It would take me about 10 minutes total to drive to a drugstore and buy more tape. But that task seemed like WAY TOO MUCH EFFORT. Until I texted my good friend Lindsey about it. And then I went and bought some goddamn tape and about 17 other items I needed. It took about 20 minutes because of the extra shopping, and both my night and my week improved immensely. Thanks, Linds!
For real, sometimes the step that will break me out of a potentially blah empty evening is reaching out, not necessarily with any emergency call for help, but just a “hey, how are ya?” kind of conversation. I need to push that technique up to the top of my list of coping strategies.
FOUR: Sometimes it helps to focus on what I’m avoiding and why I’m avoiding it. Whole new worlds can open up. Before I started this blog series, I went over a month without blogging at all. I also had stopped watching TV. Each evening when I would consider what I wanted to do, those activities were quickly discarded. I was somehow never in the mood to do either.
Then I heard people talking about The Queen’s Gambit and I wanted to see it. As I watched the first episode, I realized that I had been avoiding blogging and TV watching because I didn’t want to sit on the couch where I usually sat for those activities. Why? Because I had lower back pain. I was avoiding enjoyable activities because they could be painful, but I was unaware of my motivation until that evening.
I found ways to sit that would be okay for my back, I began doing stretches and exercises while watching TV, and soon after I began blogging. Both activities are great for me–they help me process things and they are often just plain fun. As far as blogging: “It’s wonderful to be here. It’s certainly a thrill.”
When I talked with my therapist about this discovery, she said she was glad I had noticed sooner rather than later what I was giving up because of my instinct to avoid pain. She pointed out that sometimes I have a talent for avoiding pain, which in itself can lead to…a different kind of pain.
And that brings me back to item #1 in this list, doesn’t it?
***
That’s it. That’s what I got so far. I have time off December 25 – January 3, and I already had trouble sleeping one night, getting anxious about facing that time with options limited by the pandemic. In non-pandemic times, I think I’d travel to a beach for a few days where I’d be happy walking and reading and playing in the water.
I asked for ideas on Facebook, and I’m grateful for all who made suggestions. I will spend some time with my kids and spend outdoor time walking or hiking with friends. I have a couple social zooms planned, and I’m looking forward to taking care of some small projects. I’ll probably finish my #TheLaurieProject blog series, and I will likely get started on my next writing project. I’ll definitely read and watch some TV.
I’m not sure what else I’ll do, but I have a feeling the days will fly by. When I was in high school, I wrote this poem. I think it had a first stanza that I no long remember, but here is the middle and end.
The funny thing is clouds
which seem to keep quite still
while they easily pass over the grass
and beyond the furthest hill.
Who can count the years?
or the days or hours or minutes?
We hardly notice when they fly by
on wings of the swiftest linnets.
That’s PastLaurie teaching PresentLaurie to pay attention, to notice, to live. And when I find myself in a numb or mindless or blah state, to refocus on what and whom I care about.
writing
Even though I have always loved to read and write, for most of my life I was the kind of person who thought I should be keeping a journal. It wasn’t until summer 2018 that I actually went from someone who wrote in a journal sometimes to a person who keeps a journal (and you can read a bit about that here).
In July 2018, my journaling was a way to help me recognize all I was doing, which was important because my days were regularly full but I easily focused on all I had not accomplished. Journaling helped me organize my thoughts, plans, ideas, and schedule. It helped me take time to process. And it helped me give myself credit for the many tasks I was completing.
work journals 
personal journals
My writing evolved. When I was a faculty person, my work life and personal life blended together, so I kept one journal. Eventually, after moving to full-time administration, I needed separate journals for work and my personal life. Both journals combine the kind of deep engagement associated with reflection or grappling with difficult things and more rudimentary writing—to-do lists, notes, reminders. I dog ear pages I need to return to. I use Google Keep and white boards to help me keep an eye on bigger projects so I can make progress without feeling anxious about remembering everything. I take pictures of my journal pages chronicling grocery lists or errands before I head out the door.
The whiteboard at work helps me track projects so they don’t fall off my radar 
GoogleKeep helps me track tasks via categorized and color-coded lists 
I take pictures of journal pages with my phone to keep track of weekend errands and plans
When I go to therapy, I bring my journal with me. I usually don’t open it, but having it with me is a reminder of the questions and concerns and issues I’ve written about, the things I know I want to talk about, the parts of my life I need help figuring out.
I usually sit in my car at the end of a therapy session and write about what I learned. I have a good therapist; she reads my life and offers insights that are worth sitting with. I don’t often reread my journals, but I hold onto things more through the simple act of writing them. They become mine. Inscribed, if ever so lightly, on who I am.
I prefer spiral bindings and lined paper, but I will write in anything. I prefer pens that roll smoothly without bleeding through pages or smearing. I want my writing to be pleasurable. It’s not a chore. It’s not something I should do. It’s something I want to do. It’s a gift.
I have become someone who journals.
***
Back in 2010, I heard Bump Halbritter (that’s a great name, isn’t it?) speak at the CWPA (Council of Writing Program Administrators) Conference in Philadelphia. He said that if we want our students to write using new media, we needed to be using it ourselves.
I left that conference and began a video blog so I could learn how to make videos and how to blog. That first video blog was recreational, but it taught me a lot and influenced my teaching, my administrative work, and my scholarship in wonderful ways. I ended up creating lots of collaborative blogs over time, and you might enjoy some of the ones from classes I taught, like this one or this one or this one.
As you can see, I’m still blogging. (I’m actually still making videos, too, but that’s just a chance thing needed in my workplace because of the pandemic. I think I will always love editing video. But that’s slightly off-topic right now.)
In a lot of my blog posts, I chew on ideas in ways that are similar to my personal journals, but I spend time editing and reviewing and revising when I blog. The writing is informal, of course, and conversational, but I still take more care than I do in my journal.
Blogging has helped me take a lot of my personal stories and internal journeys and offer them up to others. It’s a humble kind of gift, one that I offer readers and that readers give right back to me by taking the time to listen. This is what happened to me or Here’s something I’m thinking through or I’ve learned something, maybe. I often don’t know the narrative of a blog post until I write it. I often write it too long and cut out chunks. I sometimes do very little editing or revision and just let a post out into the wild, warts and all. I’m often figuring out the journey right along with my readers.
Blogging helps me feel more connected, less alone. I’m someone who journals, and I’m also someone who blogs.
***
In the last several months, I have brainstormed and written tiny pieces of a novel. It’s something I would like to read if I ever get it written. It’s on the back burner for now.
Over many years, I have worked on a semi-scholarly book that I have plotted out and which I love thinking about but towards which I haven’t made serious efforts in quite some time. Academic writing takes a certain kind of sustained energy, and I may return to it in a focused way or I may dabble; I don’t know. That’s on a back burner as well.
And I have another writing project I hope to embark on soon. I don’t know yet how it will work, but it seems worth trying. Updates will come later.
I’m not sure what my point is except that different kinds of writing may or may not energize me and become part of who I am at different points in my life. As an academic, I have spent a good bit of time over the years writing for publication, usually for an audience of other academics. I’m happy with the work I’ve published; I worked to contribute to scholarly conversations that matter. But that is not what matters to me right now.
As far as this time of growth and healing and trying to process an unbelievable amount of change in my life in a very short time: Writing has meant everything to me. Publication is not the point.
Writing keeps me focused and organized at work, and it keeps me focused and moving forward at home. It provides a kind of buffer between the life I live / the actions I take, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, my intentions and plans and hopes and feelings in relation to the plot of my life. It creates room. It allows change and growth. It helps me see more clearly and listen better. It helps keep me honest.
Of all the things in my life that have been good for me, writing is right up there with food, sleep, water, and exercise. When I don’t know what to do with myself as evening falls, writing has helped me speak into the void, has helped me reframe the world, has helped me see myself anew by expressing myself anew.
I don’t really know what I’m doing. I don’t know where I’m going. But writing gives me a kind of stability, a pathway through the fallen snow that I shovel out with my pen (or with my keyboard? whatever…), one step at a time, allowing me to move forward rather than get stuck in the drifts.
I don’t know if that metaphor works, but it feels apt since I just did a lot of shoveling last week. That was some heavy lifting! And probably very good for me and my small muscles. It was hard, but it felt good when it was done and walking and driving became safer and easier. In this time of isolation compounded by a winter storm, shoveling opened up the world just a little bit; it made more things possible.
And, with that, I’m going to say it is indeed a good metaphor.
from in-tension to intention: part 2 with Manson and Taylor
I recently wrote about reading two self-help books that speak to one another in rather cool ways:
Although I’ve only read a couple chapters in each, the first gem was a reminder to jump out of any shame spiral we find ourselves stuck in. I’m now continuing the conversation with a second gem.
Figure out what matters to you
I think all of our lives have felt less stable than usual in the midst of the pandemic. Mine was already in that state when the pandemic started. In addition to divorcing just over a year ago, I moved a few times in the past year and changed jobs twice. A year ago at this time, I was moving through tasks as well as I could, but I felt like I was falling apart. I could barely tell anyone how I was feeling because to speak of it at all was to break into outright sobbing, something I did several times in November and December of 2019. Since then, I’ve slowed everything down in my life because the changes were overwhelming and I needed to regain some footing. Now I’m at a point of slowly figuring out the shapes of my days. That’s why I’m blogging, really, to process the small structures of my days that prop up the big picture. I’m taking stock.
To be clear, in terms of the big picture, I’m still at an in-between stage of my life. I have settled into where I live and work, but I don’t necessarily know where I’ll be living or working in five years. And I also don’t know where my kids will be living and working in five years. I don’t know if I’ll be in a romantic relationship that will matter to me in five years. Of course, the future is never certain, so no one ever really knows where they’ll be in five years. Still, my future is far more open than I expected it to be at this stage.
That openness (instability?) in my life is one reason why I need to focus on what matters to me.
The other reason? Because I sometimes fritter away time, scrolling through social media or playing a game on my phone mindlessly. Sometimes I get lost on Zillow, imagining places I might eventually live. And at other times I waste time worrying about the future or imagining romance with Mr. Right (not his real name) or replaying and analyzing the past day or the past years or the past decades, wondering what other paths I could’ve taken.
Repeatedly, when I find myself a bit lost in such distractions, I’ve reminded myself of what matters to me so I can refocus my energy. This refocusing has been inspired and reinforced through the books of Manson and Taylor.
***
Despite his title, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck, Manson’s book is not actually about not giving a fuck but rather it’s about choosing what’s important enough to care about:
You and everyone you know are going to be dead soon. And in the short amount of time between here and there, you have a limited amount of fucks to give. (13)
It is thus “the most worthy struggle one can undertake in one’s life”: “to pick and choose what matters to you and what does not matter to you based on finely honed personal values” (Manson 13).
Taylor says something similar as she discusses bodies. One of the ways Taylor helps readers focus on what matters most is to delve into buying habits and distinguish consumerism that is based on fear and a sense of unworthiness from consumerism that is thoughtful:
When given the opportunity to think about how we would spend our money if we thought of it as a powerful and abundant resource…we choose things that bring us closest to the epicenter of our joy and remind us of what is central about being alive. (134)
Thus, “reflecting on our purchases gives us an opportunity to investigate whether we are in alignment with our own unapologetic truth” (Taylor 135).
How we spend our resources–our time and our money–can be random, unplanned, left to someone else to decide. Or we can be intentional in what we do with this “one wild and precious life” (to quote Mary Oliver).
***
I’m not going to say that I paid no attention to how I used my energy, my time, and my money before reading Manson and Taylor. But I will say that I didn’t give it enough thought. It’s only been recently, as I have put work into its place and as I have lived independently, that I have been called to articulate my priorities to myself. I’ve needed to.
Here’s one of my lists. You can see it’s all about self care and the people who matter most to me. (Hey, nephews and nieces and colleagues and former students and others who aren’t named here: You matter to me, too! I just ran out of paper. But don’t worry–my heart has plenty of room.)
This list is not my only list of priorities because I’m in the process of figuring things out. I care about the work I do, I care about helping others, and I hope to always make time in my life for play. The other day I felt crummy, and I didn’t devote time to what matters to me in any obvious way, but I did allow myself to feel crummy and to hunker down instead of forcing myself to move through my to-do list. “Feel crummy, lie around, and read until you fall asleep” is not on any of my lists, but I am committed to making room in my life for uncomfortable feelings, and I’m also committed to giving myself a goddamn break. (Did you notice? That was me avoiding the shame spiral. Woot!)
Being intentional isn’t about restricting myself. Instead, it’s freeing myself from the things I really don’t care about but somehow can get lost in. Being intentional gives me time and energy and money to spend in ways that I feel good about.
***
That’s it for today. What matters? And what choices are we making to reflect that? Those are the questions Manson and Taylor ask. Those are the questions I’m learning to ask and to answer, not only in the lists I make but also in the small and big decisions that give shape to my days and, over time, give shape to my life.
walking & talking
One of the silver linings of the pandemic and of my long-ass commute has been more awareness of how good it is to walk. Walking is good to do on my own, for sure. And it’s also a great way to have social time that is relatively safe.
So here’s the crucial role walking plays in my life these days.
Most of the time I arrive at work early and take a 5-minute walk before heading to my office. I love this time of day. My long commutes are hell on my lower back, so the stretching of my limbs is necessary, and the outdoor air is, well, exactly what outdoor air should be.
My more substantial walks on most weekdays happen during half of my hour-long lunch. Two of my colleagues, Kim and Paige, already had a walking routine before I started at Kutztown, and after they saw me eating my lunch alone outside on a few occasions once I began there, they asked if I wanted to join them. I couldn’t say “yes” fast enough. Social time has always been part of my work life, but it’s harder to figure out since moving from a faculty position to a full-time administrator role, and it’s wayyyy more difficult to figure out during a pandemic. Having lunch or coffee with colleagues is just not a safe option. But walking? It’s perfect.
Sometimes our walking plan doesn’t work out, but more often than not, it does. And we already have plans for using the field house track when the weather is too cold or snowy to be outside for 30 minutes.
Our conversation during our midday walk sometimes focuses on work, but most of the time we chat about things we see or random things going on in our lives. I’m learning the campus (which is beautiful) and the neighborhood, and we are building friendships. I don’t like spending money and time driving to work, but I do love working in person rather than working from home, and part of the reason is these lunchtime walks.
And then there are weekends. Sometimes I have a chunk of time on my hands and I walk at the Lackawanna Heritage Trail (not too far from my house) or at Lackawanna State Park (a more substantial drive away but 100% worth it). These times of solitude are well-spent.
happy at the State Park 
beauty is good for the soul
More typically, I walk with good friends. Like my time with Paige and Kim, these outings are ways of having social time without compromising safety. I love love love the conversations I’ve had with my friends as we have actively enjoyed the outdoors.
I don’t know how I will make walking work during the winter months. I don’t know if I’ll just bundle up more or invest in snow shoes or try cross-country skiing. I just haven’t figured it out yet. But I do know that over the last several months as I’ve been getting my life together, walking with friends has been such an important part of my health that it’s not something I can sacrifice, at least not without figuring out an alternative.
Laurie Mac Reads 