Resignation and Rediscovery

I know I still haven't posted pictures or stories from Ireland, but I just made a big life change, and since I'm on this journey toward living authentically, here goes.

[Since this is a long post, here's a summary: I quit my job. Mostly. I'm growing a backbone and rediscovering my voice.]

For a while now, work has been tense. I was resigned to the tension. I could handle it. It wasn't pleasant, but it was manageable. Until July 16. In a meeting on the morning of July 16, the tension reached new heights, and it became abundantly clear that I could no longer continue in the position I held. On the afternoon of July 16, I submitted my letter of resignation and two weeks' notice. The next morning, I agreed to continue to manage the youth orchestra.

I have worked steadily since graduating from college in May 2008 so I find myself in rather an odd place without a full-time job. In a way, I feel liberated. Certainly, I am grateful not to have to spend my days under the thumb of a merciless dictator. (Okay, I'm being dramatic. It wasn't that bad. Most of the time.) In another way, I feel really lazy for not going to work.

I've sorted through a pile of old greeting cards (happy memories, those) and binders full of atrociously bad writing from high school. The dishes are all clean. My bedroom floor is visible. I've got a play to rehearse beginning this Monday evening. My days, though, stretch ahead in vast emptiness (until I find another job, which is, of course, the goal).

These free moments have led to some pleasant discoveries. Saturday Night Live has proven a time-consuming diversion. (Stefon is hilarious; Seth Meyers is dreamy.) Huffington Post directed me to Janet Varney's podcast: "The JV Club". Varney's conversations with talented and interesting women have helped pass the time while I'm cleaning the apartment and also provided thought-provoking brain fodder.

During Varney's podcast featuring Alison Brie from TV's "Community", Brie and Varney played with one of those paper fortune tellers sometimes called a cootie catcher. Rather than being a fortune teller, though, this cootie catcher asked deep, probing questions. (Here's a picture of their cootie catcher.) One of them was to name "three differences, better or worse, from your teenage self." Varney's answer covered, among other things, feeling not as smart and well informed as she once was. (She expressed, though, that this is changing through the work that she's currently doing because she stays really well informed, on a par with the intellectual stimulation of being in college. Yay Janet!)

In re-reading some of my writing from college, I began to wonder what has happened to my brain since I graduated. I had thoughts, big thoughts and smart thoughts, and I wrote them down and gave them to my professors--and sometimes even to my peers but only when required--to read. I remember, though, being overly concerned with what other people would think of my thoughts. I still am. That hasn't changed. I am terrified of sharing my opinions with people (excepting those few very greatly trusted friends).

I grew up in a very nurturing environment. I attended an all-girls high school with small classes and low student-to-teacher ratios. My thoughts were valued when I chose to express them, and the environment provided ample opportunity for such expression. Then, too, in college, my papers (mostly) received glowing comments with regard to my thoughts. Why, then, am I so afraid to share them now? What suppresses my voice?

It's a fear of discomfort. I know that. I can name it. I strongly dislike being uncomfortable or making other people uncomfortable. So I have kept my mouth shut and my head down. I have shied away from confrontation, which has allowed people to walk all over me. Recently, I found my voice and started standing up for myself.

People who like to walk on other people don't like it when those people grow backbones and refuse to be trodden upon any longer. People like that call standing up for yourself "insubordination" or "lack of respect." People like that refuse to acknowledge that maybe they need to change.

In the face of such miserable vindictiveness, I resigned. I retreated to a place where positivity is appreciated, even if that's only in my own brain. My thoughts are worthwhile, and I am valuable, and I am not about to surrender my newfound backbone and voice just because someone thinks I am worth less than I am.

Because I am awesome.

So are you.