fear of the unknown could never slow me down
For the last 2 years, I've attended a work conference in Philadelphia. I almost didn’t go because I’ve spent the last year trying to untangle my relationship with work and my Sense of Self (how original!). Philadelphia—my second favorite city and one that feels like a surrogate home—continues to be the perfect place for that.
When I think about my relationship with work, I often remember of a passage from Martyr!:
“You just had to live and suffer and then teach your kids to do the same. Habit passing for happiness.
Go to work. Dig through the shavings, find the eggs. Eat. Clean the eggs put down new shavings. Clear the driplines. Go home. Eat with Cyrus. Put on basketball, put on a movie. Drink. Dreamless sleep. Medicine-deep. Go to work. Find the eggs.
What was there to complain about? A murdered wife? A sore back? The wrong grade copper? Living happened til it didn’t. There was no choice in it. To say no to a new day would be unthinkable. So each morning you said yes, then stepped into the consequence.”
I have faint memories of my mother cleaning houses we couldn't afford to live in. Later (or before? at the same time?), she worked at the local plant nursery. This was my favorite, Some days, she would bring me to work with her, and I would marvel at all the plants in neat little rows.
My father was a hardworking man, but illiterate and unpolished—breaking his body for the county utility department and the distant hope of retirement (he never made it). But there was also: pickup trucks and dirt roads; fishin’ and shrimpin’ on the river; barbecues and oyster shuckin’ in the backyard; learning how to shoot a bow and arrow; yard sales in the neighborhoods with cul-de-sacs; swimming at the creek and jumping off the boat ramp; nights spent in the living room as a family, watching wrasslin’.
Looking back, my twenties were some of the most difficult years of my life: newly married and a full time student working two (sometimes three) part time jobs, exhausted but promising myself to always take at least one class; caregiving for a husband dealing with post-deployment mental health issues and having to navigate the bureaucracy of the Department of Veterans Affairs; saying yes to guardianship of his 12-year-old brother, despite being children ourselves.
Six years later and a bachelor’s in hand, I yes to my first corporate job. It was another means to an end: a consistent paycheck with health insurance, paid holidays, and vacation time. It was also a job that destroyed my mental and physical health in a way that a decade in retail never did, but I’m still (oddly) grateful for the opportunity. Three years later, an opportunity to leave presented itself—a light at the end of the tunnel I badly needed—so I said “yes” and stepped into the consequence.
There are moments now where “habit passing for happiness” creeps up on me and I begin to recognize what it feels like in my body (trapped and suffocating and the walls are closing in and all of the air has been sucked out of the room; or maybe it’s a room where all of the windows and doors have been removed and the only thing you can do is endure and wait for the light to reappear, because it always comes back, doesn’t it?; it’s a part in the back of my brain singing “every day is exactly the same / every day is exactly the same / there is no love here and there is no pain / every day is exactly the same”; it’s the resentment and anger that builds because "isn’t anybody listening?!” and then I know I’m stagnating and that I have to do the Very Hard Thing and step out of my comfort zone.
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Over four years with the same company and I'm trying to embrace the opportunities that my job provides. I’m saying “yes” more because I’m realizing that nothing could ever be worse than where I started—and every thing I’ve done afraid has worked out better than I could have ever expected—so I agreed to participate in a panel for work and took the Acela to Philadelphia.
The train from Baltimore is a little over an hour and I am grateful it gave me the chance to actually listen to the new Bright Eyes album while I played Mario on my Gameboy Advance. I hadn't listened to any of the singles and from the very first track it felt like coming home in a way that Down in the Weeds, Where the World Once Was didn't. The discordant opening track followed by a jaunty tune is still there, but Connor’s voice is noticeably older on this album.
After dropping off my luggage, I was (relatively) free and walked over to Reading Terminal Market for the sensory experience and banana pudding from Sweet Nina’s.
I wander around LOVE Park for too long trying to find the perfect spot to sit, snack, and people watch (my favorite). After walking around in circles, I eventually mustered up the courage to ask an older gentleman if I could share a bench with him. He said yes (of course), so we sat in comfortable silence: him, reading some kind of devotional book and me, eating banana pudding from Sweet Nina’s with a spoon that used to be my grandmother’s, soaking in the cacophony of sound: police sirens, cars, and buses; the squeak of brakes; the fragments of conversation as people pass; the peals of laughter and screaming as children play in the grass behind me; people patiently waiting to take pictures in front of the LOVE sign.
The stimuli of the park, a gift to my dysregulated nervous system and the Parts that were shoved down for years. More and more, I find myself excited when I have moments to be because it gives me the opportunity to explore the Parts of me that are afraid, skeptical, and curious; to have a thought and explore it and make decisions with intention. The dilemma at hand? Catching a showing of Seeking Mavis Beacon at Philadelphia Film Society’s Bourse Theater in Old Town (alone) and how to get there. It seems a silly choice now: see a movie or don’t. Bike there or walk.
I decided to go and I decided to walk. On my walk back to the hotel, I yapped with two strangers who live in the city. We chatted about the the weather first, but then I let my Curiosity run wild and I ask questions and learn that one of them was from Barbados and I can feel the longing in his voice when he describes it to me. The other had lived in Philly for more than twenty years and couldn't imagine being anywhere else. We bonded over a shared love for our respective cities and the disappointment in the trash that litters the streets. A conversation that stretched multiple blocks that only occurred because I heard a man next to me sigh heavily--so much said in such a short sound--and a part of me said "yes, me too, but it's a beautiful day."
Day 1: I have a love-hate relationship with work events. On one hand, I get to travel and meet so many new and interesting people, but on the other, it’s still work which means it’s nerve-wracking and awkward and being “on” for so long is exhausting. I also promised myself I wouldn’t be a person who never left the hotel on trips which usually means I am exhausted, but it’s a trade I make every single time.
I did the Business Lady thing and "networked" which really means I tried to care about the Business of It All, but mostly I worked to find in-roads with people that weren't business-related. At one point, I yapped with someone about Star Wars for 20 minutes because those are the interactions that sustain me in work settings. So I listened to presentations about Change Management and KPIs and parts of me screamed internally. I was invited to a work dinner and attended, but I was little late because I had to change into Real Clothes, which was followed by another moment where I thought about biking but then ended up speed walking to the restaurant. I ordered lamb kebabs (they were very good) and genuinely had a great time. I got to yap about things that weren't work-specific and when I had to leave early a part of me was sad to go, but I made plans with myself to attend a book release + film screening and to catch a new-to-me-genre: pinky violence.
I finally pushed my anxiety down and decided to bike. After struggling to unlock it, I cycled through downtown on my way to Spring Garden, amazed at how much larger City Hall looked from the seat of a bicycle.
At some point on, my brain screamed “I know this place!” and I remembered that Robert and I saw Modern Baseball play one of their hiatus shows at a venue down the road. I remembered the old-building-turned-apartments and thought “there’s art on the other side of this," my excitement building because there’s a familiarity; an anchor of memory in the midst of so much internal chaos.
The movie is a fever dream and I had no idea girl gangs actually existed in Japan. I buy a copy of the book for myself and someone else. She asked me over and over how she could pay me back, but I encouraged her to pay it forward because I understand the feeling of wanting something so bad, but not having the money in the moment. Something so simple on my end--a quick CashApp transaction--but meant so much to her in the moment.
On the way back to the hotel, I chatted with my Uber driver. We started with general pleasantries, but then I got sick of talking about myself and the job that that makes no sense to anyone, so I tell him about the movie instead. I asked him about himself and Philadelphia and I learned he grew up in the city and he loves it, but more and more people are moving to it and it's becoming like New York. He asked me about Baltimore, so I told him I love it. The small, close-knit neighborhoods that make up the city and the random conversations I regularly have with strangers; a sense of belonging so deep in my bones that I couldn't imagine ever living anywhere else.
If the small talk about Disney-owned IPs are what sustain me during work trips, then these are the interactions that fill me back up, helping reorient me back on my own axis.
Day 2: I get to go home and I excitedly chat with my Uber driver on the way to of the conference and chatting comes easily. He asks me about my trip and I tell him that I love Philadelphia and always have the best time. I tell him about Seeking Mavis Beacon and pinky violence and girl gangs in Japan. At some point, the conversation turns and he asks me about the river and if people care about it. A loaded question—there is so much context and nuance in between yes and no—but he continues talking, telling me about Lebanon, and how there are restaurants and businesses along the river and it’s beautiful; people gather and spend time there. I ask if culturally, they see themselves as a part of nature or separate from it and after a short pause he says “part of it, of course.”
I spent most of the day being anxious about giving My Opinions on a panel, but (unsurprisingly) it went better than I expected. My job is stressful and draining and requires a lot of grit and emotional intelligence. I work with so many different types of people and a lot of different levels of the org chart and it's a role that industry sees as "mostly admin," so I used the platform to argue it's so much more than that.
I am now at a point where people ask me how I got where I am. A frustrating question because it implies there was some kind of plan, when really my early decisions were made out of survival and whatever seemed like the next logical step. When that almost killed me, I started following what felt right, which became synonymous with scary. I'm also learning to embrace all of my Parts—especially the ones I’m most scared of—and that has made an even bigger difference. It has also meant learning to put myself first (scary!) and that comes with a whole lot of grief.
Mostly, I try to remind myself that I am living a life that I only ever dreamed of and I try to honor the promises I made to myself throughout this decade long fever dream: be kind, curious, and open.