Some years ago I landed a teaching job and felt like I’d finally arrived.
Turns out I never really left the airport.
Everyone has different definitions of success. What people don’t talk about is how those definitions can change with time in and of themselves. On the other hand, we ought to be growing and changing as people if we are doing our best at this whole thing, and so of course we will in turn be moving our own goalposts.
Sometimes we may think we’ve reached the goalpost only to learn it wasn’t what we’d hoped or expected. I think that in my case, I’d finally reached a goalpost I’d been convinced I never would, and it hadn’t really occurred to me to pause and consider if I still wanted it. There wasn’t time to stop and think about what I wanted — and if you’ve been reading my posts long enough, you know that stopping to think about what I wanted was practically a verboten experience for me for most of my life. I’ve only in recent months started to pay attention to where “want” lives in my body and how to give it more of a voice.
One thing I do know I want as much as possible in my life is authenticity, because I’ve spent most of my life without it. I’m 38 years old today, and it dawned on me that some of my dearest friends have been in my life for twenty years this fall season. Twenty years is a long time to stay in touch with a person; sure, social media makes that easier, but I’m talking about relationships that exist beyond Facebook’s friendaversary reminders (as it happens, this fall was my 20-year anniversary of being on Facebook too!). It does sort of feel like I blinked and two decades went by. I know I’m not the same person I was then; I’ve changed, and so have my friends, but, we’re supposed to. The great blessing of my life is that I’ve found people who can grow and change with me and maintain that authenticity that enables me to keep faith in them and myself and our relationships. Not just my twenty-year friends, but others whom I’ve known for respectable lengths of time. It helps me feel steady when so much else does not.
New work will come. It likely will come and go, several more times. I may have now left the airport and gone straight into being lost at sea, but I will find a new shore at which I can dock my boat and do work that feels meaningful and productive — and I’ll get off the dock and take pride and enjoyment in the fuller aspects of my life. I may not know yet what I want, but I know who’s by my side. And I’m grateful.
A new Sara Bareilles song from her latest album that I’m sort of obsessed with has such great lyrics that I’m thinking of making it my next tattoo somehow:
“Rough seas make strong sailors…
And nothing’s gonna capsize me.”
