Recovery -

It’s Good Friday in the United States which means that the Indiana State Library is closed. That means that ostensibly I’m off work. In reality, I’ve been up since 5 a.m. working on projects that I don’t get to work on during my daily work because of distractions and the many aspects of the job. Please. I know. This is a bleeding red flag for several things including burn out.

I am flirting aggressively with burn out. Thankfully, I know that I will be leaving my position at the end of May to move to Virginia. I mean, that’s something. Right? It means a lot of really good things. It means that I get to live with the love of my life in a place that I love. It also means that I will be moving away from my home state of nearly thirty years and away from easy contact with my children. And it means that I am leaving the security of my job without the assurance of permanent employment.

It’s been stressing me out. I’m already stressed out. And I’m tired of it.

And so now it’s time to turn the page on that and talk about another aspect of this next chapter.

It is about taking real risks. It was a real risk to get married. It was a bigger risk to get married while in recovery to a partner in recovery. For me, those were risks worth taking. It was also a huge risk to put my new “boundary making” skills to use and set deadlines for leaving my job and moving. Again worth it. And, it was a risk to both put myself forward as a possible contractor and then agree to that proposition.

But that’s what I’m going to do. Take all of those risks. I’m going to work as a contracted transitional ECDI coordinator for a year. And during that time, I’m going to build some of my other skills and use my “time and place” to create a new structure of work for myself. Something that isn’t about the meat grinder leading to burnout. Something that aligns with those things I WANT to be passionate about. Something that lets me get old but not obsolete.

So, let’s see.

I should be writing an article about how the post and page builder I have in WordPress actually works against anyone trying to write some type of content. Apparently blogs aren’t for writing anymore. Of course, now I realize that I might as well pull up a rocking chair and start yelling at content creators to get off my lawn.

But I digress.

March 8 is International Women’s Day. That’s today. I’m a woman.

This is the first year that I’ve seriously taken note of International Women’s Day. Previously, I thought about it in terms of activism for fair treatment and basic rights both here and abroad. I’ve thought of it in terms of those women who used all of their gifts and competencies to do good only to have those efforts stolen and used as power currency by the brokers of such – by and large, men.

I have never thought of today in terms of myself. It’s always been external and abstract and too big and over there.

This year, perhaps because of my recovery journey, I’ve observed myself engaging with this day differently; with more curiosity and not just a little sadness. And anger. And pride (yes, that thing I was taught was sinful). And curiosity about all of those things.

I love being a woman. But it has not been without the knowledge that comes from experience that my agency is young and fragile even if I’m not. I am able to struggle for better (and it is always a struggle) because women before me demanded and made change. It is NOT because it was given to them or us. It has never been given to us. We paid for every bit with blood and pain.

For a long time, and even now sometimes, I only thought of myself as one thing – a breeder. That is where I was taught that both my curse and blessing lay. And because I was an adequate breeder, the rest of me didn’t matter.

And that, I think, is why I’m sad and angry. And also why I’m grateful and proud. Because my adequacy as a breeder has never been a measure of my value no matter what my society or others told me or what I told myself. Being a woman has never been an indicator of my value. It is just a fact of my being that creates a context to be in.

But, we are in charge of our context. I am grateful and proud of those women who came before me and walk with me now who know their worth. I am grateful and proud of those women who model that I don’t have to be dependent on external forces to believe in myself.

I have been small for a long time. It is because I was afraid that I wouldn’t be liked. It is because I was afraid that I’d be “abandoned yet again.” I’d be too much.

My gift to myself on this International Women’s Day and every day is the permission from myself to grow as much as I want to. To take up as much space as I need. To become more and more and less and less.

And that is the gift I hope you give yourself as well.