Today I am thankful that I am going back home tomorrow. But I’m also anxious and wistful, so it’s time to write.
On my second morning in my state-of-origin (SOO), I wrote, “I am more myself here. I look better anyway.” And that’s true — the light is kinder here, and the air is fresher, and I generally sleep more. I felt immensely relaxed the first day I spent at my parents’ lake house. I fantasized, as I always do, about moving back here, about having a life that is kinder to me. I pledged to come to my parents’ lakeside house every summer, and stay for a long time, and enjoy the heat and the water and the unpretentious prettiness.
But then I started feeling anxious and unsettled. I can only surrender my adult autonomy for a short while. I need time every day in which no one else is around — I need it like most people need coffee. I get along very well with my parents. I adore my son. But I have to have some minutes in which I can’t hear or see them, or they me. And I didn’t have it. I woke up early this morning hoping to enjoy the house by myself, and my heart sank when I saw my father already up and reading the paper. By the time I’d gone to the bathroom, everyone else was awake and active.
This relaxation and then reaction happens every time I come back to SOO. I only remember that during the reaction phase, never during the relaxation — which is a good thing, I suppose, otherwise I wouldn’t relax, even for those few hours.
Even though I am glad to be leaving, I am anxious about it. Work is increasingly stressful. I’m working very hard (um, except for this vacation), but have the uncomfortable feeling that I’m being marginalized. I have flourished with a poorly defined role at work, but I think personnel changes and a massive increase in our workload will make my fluidity a liability. I want to stamp my foot and say it’s not fair and say “They aren’t letting me….” which is of course the worst thing to do. Nobody is going to “let” me do anything — I have to do it myself. My colleagues are better at their jobs than I am at mine — more independent, more thorough, more probing, more thoughtful. I start I thinking I’m nailing it and am getting really good at what I do, and then I get brought up short and realize how superficial my analyses and hasty my approaches are. I don’t have staff (I share my assistant — 70% of his time belongs to someone else), and I don’t have a portfolio, and I think I haven’t earned it. I need to make more out of what I have, and I don’t exactly see how. I could do anything I want, but what I want is to follow directions, and none are forthcoming.
And I’ve just realized that my most senior female colleague is threatened by other women. She doesn’t know it, and the way she expresses it is pretty subtle, but it’s real. I don’t know how effectively I can work around her. She has this terrible way of saying no without actually saying no — she just makes no-ness happen. And she’s steadily moving things out of my domain without telling me about it forthrightly, and not engaging when I say, “Hey, what just happened here?” I’m ostensibly senior staff, so there’s no one to be my champion or protector. The VP in charge of my division and the troubling senior female colleague have worked together for almost 20 years, and co-founded the enterprise. They can’t recognize or manage the conflicts between them because it conflicts with their narrative of perfect harmony, so there’s no going to him with my complaints.
And I have been having dreams that make me sad. Here is the heart of my anxiety. Last year, when I was trying to get pregnant I had dreams in which babies appeared, but it was always clear that those babies were not mine. That message pervaded the dreams like a sonic boom. My unconscious was unwilling to make promises that biology couldn’t keep. (And yes, some would say that my unconscious was in fact keeping me from getting pregnant, that I didn’t believe, couldn’t commit, didn’t want. And I would tell them to f*ck right off.) But now I dream of my own babies, which I won’t have. Two nights ago, I dreamed I had boy-girl twins with blond hair like chicks’ fluff. And I felt so sad and cheated when I woke up, not only because those babies will never be mine, but because my dreams, which had been so protective of me during the period of trying to conceive, so careful not to feed hopes, were now betraying me. My dreams used to protect me, and now they betray me. Or maybe I betray them. This was at least the second new baby dream — I can’t remember anything about the first one, but I remember waking up and being very stressed about it, and feeling off balance for hours. I wanted to blog about it, but it felt too dangerous. I wanted to ask Belette to analyze it, but that felt dangerous, too. I remember that I told myself it didn’t really mean anything, it meant that I wanted more children — okay, so what, I knew that already. I made myself forget it. So of course it came back — as twins no less.
I can’t go back. I can’t go back to the uncomplicated time when I lived in SOO (and I had a very uncomplicated childhood and adolescence). I can’t leave my real life and my disappointments and sit by a lake all the time. I have work. I have dreams (not the happy and comforting kind). I have good things waiting at home.
And now, I’m going to comfort myself by trying to find something (anything!) yummy on sale. I may not even buy it, I may just feel like I could buy it if I wanted to, and that might be enough.
Another Door 