No pictures for you on today's post. Google has changed how I access images from the web - and I don't have the patience how to figure it out. Maybe later.
Today is Monday - the day after a dance weekend. I started reading my old blogs - backwards from the last entry. I can see now that last September I began having questions about staying with this job. September 6th, I think. And then, several posts mentioned that I was seeing and experiencing things with which I was uncomfortable, surprise at some of the faculty, pressure coming from the dean's office, etc. Rather than stop it then, I continued to push forward. Things ebbed and flowed - but mostly the job seemed to become bigger - I questioned: do I really want to do this? I identified several things I needed to do differently - and began to move on those issues. Then, the program assistant left - and I was thrown into the everyday details again. And now, I have been relieved of those duties as of July 1st. I no longer have to question whether or not I want to continue to do this job. That decision has been made.
I have been writing for about 2 hours now, and I have just hit the delete button again. I will continue to hash and re-hash the details with friends in real conversations - but not here. I need to process the reality of the situation and process through the ugliness - but not here. The conversations that I have with friends aren't the stories that I want to "stick." They are stories through which I want to move, not stories in which I want to dwell. Acknowledging the reality of the ugliness, yet not becoming a permanent citizen therein will be my challenge. So - the delete button is my "noble assistant" in writing and purging, writing and purging.
Not much else to say except that I am feeling a "dullness" which I would say is from overworking - being tired and burned out from working too hard. There is something about trying so very hard to make things right - and being unable to do so.
And I am somewhat freed when I understand that making things right according to someone else's vision is so very much harder when that vision is opposed to one's own. And with that freedom, comes a knowledge that making things right with one's own vision carries strength, courage, and a sense of responsibility: I am bound to writing my own stories.
"Anxiety?" "Yes," she answered.
"Angst?" "That, too," she replied.
"Yet freedom?" "Oh, yes," she quietly stated. "Freedom."
