Committed

 

09-09-2012

Entry One

Sometimes I have to sit with my anxiety for a much longer time than I am comfortable before being able to identify the culprit behind the sensation. Since I tend to live in a general state of anxiousness, it’s not always clear when the something that is tugging at me that is specific in nature, as opposed to the general self-renewing freak out that is “Oh no, I’m alive, and also an adult person expected to be able to navigate daily life fairly independently and with a reasonable amount of competence." Which is scary, obviously.

 

 So anxiety prior to beginning a Master’s program in a field similar to that in which I already hold a Master’s degree, at the age of 32, without working simultaneously (was anyone else aware that a decent grad school currently costs circa $120,000? Cause that’s a thing that’s true.)  seemed self-explanatory in its inducement of awesome excitement, coupled with some periods of self-doubt and fear. Except that I’ve come to think that’s just not really it.
 

 For all my talk of loving my profession and also the shining little life I’ve been painstakingly cobbling together since forever, I am a person who has made a variety of choices that allow me to commit myself, fully, to almost nothing. There are the obvious things, in that I have not married or had any children or bought a home (it is becoming really obvious, though, that most folks my age have done at least one of those things, but not everybody, so…phew), but there are other things, too. I’ve had a different address on average every two years. I’ve tried out a variety of hobbies, from painting to cooking to trapeze. I have no steady religious affiliation (more on that, I’m sure, in later entries); even my haircut changes so frequently that sometimes people who knew me a few years ago no longer recognize me. If I didn’t have a nagging phobia of public transportation and international travel it’s conceivable that I might be nomadic.

 

 My work, and my impenetrable positive regard for the kids with whom I work, has been the only sentiment in my life that I can safely say I have never questioned; it never flags. Having the privilege of sitting down for an hour while a young person shares his or her life with me remains more appealing to me than a plate of chocolate chip cookies. And it always has.

Which is why, at 32, after working as a professional in the field for eight years, I am finally acquiescing, and claiming a thing. I’m committing myself, with schooling and interning and more letters after my name and $120,000 (in loans, obviously) to this thing, this work thing, and saying as assuredly as I can that this is THE thing I’ll be doing, forever, as long as I am working, and probably as long as I am alive because I’ll make like no dollars and have a shit-ton of loans. Committing. Hence the huge-time anxiety, I’m fairly certain.

                A few years back I was talking with a client about codependency, in lieu of his attempts at connecting with someone in his life that just wasn’t healthy enough to do it properly. He said that his attempts, though exhausting, were obvious and non-negotiable, because he had a place in his heart that he tended to with his work on this relationship, even though he sometimes got very little from the other person involved. He kept on going to fill up that little empty space in his heart, whether he was validated, or not.

                I know I’m alluding to being codependent on my work (and it’s very likely that I am, although I kind of suspect all social workers are), but I relate to the fact of a hole inside my heart that is filled up by the work that I do, and by nothing else.  I trust myself in this one aspect, to do this one thing, for as long as I can, because it’s something I have to do.  And that is something that makes me fearful, but I believe that is also something that makes me very lucky.