2020 is Here: Separated,Liberated, Mourning
JANUARY 14, 2020
I began this new year up in the mountains of Tennessee with family. I spent the first night in the cabin cuddling with my 1-year-old niece, listening to Christmas music and reading Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson. I read for hours by firelight, falling asleep to the crackles and waking to feed the flames. We hiked part of the Appalachian trail and drove up winding roads yearning to see the mountain views. Looking back, 2019 has been a year of deep loss and heartache but also the most physically, emotionally and spiritually healthy of my adult years. Two major life changes unfolded during 2019. One of those changes was completely out of my control and the other was radically, profoundly and intentionally mine to make. Below is a reflection on how those two changes corresponded. I want to begin this year with eyes wide open to the pain and joy of my past and with the hope and courage it takes to move forward.
My husband left me a year ago after being my primary income provider for the majority of our marriage. In the wake of that financial instability I decided not to apply to a number of jobs (with benefits and enough money to save/pay loans) in order to “focus on my art.” I was heartbroken in the fullest sense I have ever experienced, caught off guard and strangely energized…
Prior to my separation it felt too hard to justify giving myself the time and space to pursue a passion that paid very little. I felt the pressure to support my family better (in large part by aggressively paying off significant student debt—90%-of-my-income aggressive). I felt the burden to start “carrying my weight.”
But something shifted when my husband left. I felt empowered to make less money, not more. It was strange to recognize that I felt more capable and valuable during a time that I could so easily have felt less capable in the absence of significant support and less valuable in my labor and professional abilities. I didn’t have to justify my value to anyone based on my wages. And that freedom from financial pressure to excel and succeed in acquiring and attaining a well-paying job in my field was realized in the desperation and lack of freedom I felt in my current 9 to 5.
At the end of June I finished a year long chaplain residency from a place that I had come to feel as a second home. I loved the work, I loved time with the medical staff and the camaraderie I felt with the pastoral care department. Keeping vigil with the dying, holding the hands of the grieving and celebrating when patients got better has been one of the greatest joys I have experienced. My time there truly changed my life and deepened my connection to this world and challenged problematic and flippant ways I had come to think about human suffering and human flourishing.
Even given all of this, I found myself getting sick often, going through frequent depressive episodes, disassociating and more. It wasn’t the 24-32 hour on-calls or the great emotional demands that seemed to use me up but the routinized work of the 9-5 schedule, the sitting in a windowless office, meeting deadlines and paperwork. I felt like a fraud and a child for not being able to keep up with the simple and straightforward expectations that others seemed to be able to grit their teeth and bare. I remember the unwanted thought-feeling come to the front of my mind: “I can’t do this forever. If I do I will die…”, “I will not survive this nine-to-five… “
However, I also did not want to act frivolously. I wanted my life’s labor to be one of integrity, hard work and meaning. Still, it felt like I wouldn’t survive too many days not being able to get out of bed. It was like my body and mind demanded that moving closer to death—in a state of depression, migraines and intense anxiety— was somehow better than a conventional schedule, even when it was with people I very much loved. Something about the environments restrictions won out over and over again.
I would think often of how it’s easy to say that the only thing I can do is sit and not make much money, to think of myself as poor and perhaps a tortured artist, when at the end of a desperate month I could count on family to show up. Perhaps tucking me into a warm bed, even though it might be done with an eye roll or condescending pat. Still, as I stepped into the vulnerable position of a separated woman working a job with a 5-month expiration date, I decided I would work the part-time regular music gig I already had, finish my album and pursue music and other creative work full-time.
Without fully understanding why or how, I came to the decision TO DO SOMETHING DIFFERENT, SOMETHING THAT FEELS FULLY SELF-INDULGENT. But also, something that feels like life. More often than ever before, I wake up feeling excited for the day. Even when stressful events come up I do not feel so defeated that the thought of not existing sounds better than dealing with the demands ahead. My physical health dramatically improved. I think I have had 1 full migraine in the past 7 months instead of the regular 1-4 a month.
As I continue to reflect daily on what is self-indulgent and what is life giving and all the other thoughts that complicate a life better lived in art, I know that the world I live in and the people I love who do get up everyday to the promise of another 9-5 work schedule are also living in a world that is unsustainable/unhealthy for them.
And then there are those working 12-hr shifts for poverty wages, beaten down by a system that doesn’t just not work for them but actively does violence to, oppresses and steals from them every day. A system that demands never-ending labor just to exist in society. I feel the death deep within and right up in front of my eyes and it hurts to be in the confines of the box our capitalist wage system demands. But the truth is, this system is not fit for anyone. It is a system that confines and stifles all of us. I truly believe that.
I am still working to reflect on how I stand alongside those in a vastly different social location than myself, those whose choices are far more complicated or in the context of unrelentingly desperate life circumstances. I certainly don’t want to think of myself as exceptional or a “starving artist.” I want to learn to understand myself and my work in the context of my privilege and not forget or ignore the oppressive system that plagues my family and community and demands their time (their lives) and in many ways their human dignity.
I also have decided that I want to live, I want to thrive and I want to more intentionally seek out joy. So, I must continue to work on what art and passion demand of me. If the nine-to-five demanded my soul, perhaps doing my art does, as well.
Maybe my soul hangs in the balance either way. Perhaps it is not about my soul being free—as if there is a fully formed agent that is pure and good waiting to be unchained—but rather a little bird, a child, a lump of clay that is waiting to be formed this way or that way. My hope, prayer and intention going forward is to uncover and practice art that grows and breaths and lives in the context of this truly screwed up world and that reflects my convictions and the respect and liberatory work I owe to others.