I was in San Francisco in April 2009. It was a Friday. I had a dinner date with my husband at Chez Panisse in Berkeley. I had a plan to take the BART to Berkeley during the day to go see my friend E give a talk on an esoteric topic in the field of environmental biology. Then I would take the BART all the way back to the city, meet T, and then get back on the BART and go back to Berkeley again. It was all a bit silly, this BARTing. E tried to dissuade me. "It's going to be soooo boring! Wouldn't you rather hang out in San Franciso and see the sights or go shopping? The talk will not be fun."
I replied, "I have a non-traditional definition of fun." She replied, "Ok! We'll go for lunch after!"
And so I went out to Berkeley, and saw the talk, which was terrific, and had lunch with E and her new husband and it was hella fun.
Being forced to justify my odd decision to E and to type the words, "I have a non-traditional definition of fun", which, being a longing-to-fit-in sort of a person isn't my preference, made me realise that it's true. And that it is OK. And that I get to decide what OK is.
It was a lesson for me. The lesson wasn't, "Oh I am sooo special and unique! I think certain things are fun and the REST OF THE WORLD, which is SO LAME, thinks certain other things are fun." The lesson was more, "Yikes. Society sends us messages about who we should want to be and what we should want to do, and most of the time, those messages are just totally wrong. I don't give a rat's ass about cable cars and Fisherman's Wharf and Union Square boutiques, but I do love watching people get on and off public transit systems, and watching my friends succeed, and reading campus maps, and looking at old universities, and trying to understand stuff I have no hope of understanding, and connecting with people, and eating at sub-par student diners."
I didn't return from that trip and immediately change my life, reject all societal standards, divorce my spouse and become vegan. But I did start paying more attention to what I want, versus what I'm supposed to want, and thought it's not necessarily harder to get those things, it is harder to remain confident in my conviction that that's what I truly want.
The most obvious example is this part-time work thing that I started at the beginning of 2010. It's hurting my career velocity, reducing my salary and creating space in my life. Many frantic little voices (mostly in my head) squeak that I should maybe rethink it. "Opportunities! Lost! Less money! Harder to get the kind of work you want! Less money! You're already too old! Why put the brakes on your career needlessly! Less money!"
I brought this up with Rara right before I went part-time.
"M'hija, I'm working on a plan to make it so you don't have to go to after-school care."
"Yay!"
"Because you said you don't like it, right?"
"Right."
"So I'm hoping to change my work so I can come home earlier."
"Yay!"
"But it's going to mean adjusting my whole professional life and not advancing as quickly, and making less money."
"Ok!"
"So, are you really sure you don't want to go to after-school care?"
"Yup!"
"Alrighty then. You're out."
"Yay! I love you Mommy."
And that happy little voice is so much wiser than all the squeaking ones, I can't even tell you. This working schedule is exactly right for me. It's been a great year.
