Recently, I had the good fortune to spend time with a few people I used to work with and hadn’t seen in a long time. One of these awesome ladies brought her 7-month-old, so I got to snuggle with him (oh, how I’ve missed babies throughout pandemic life). The other awesome lady asked me if I’m still writing my blog, because she is so nice.. I can’t believe people I don’t interact with all the time actually read it. English teachers are my people, after all!
“Honestly… no,” I told her. Not wanting to go into the nuances of mental health, I demurred about how nothing has really happened for me to write about. I haven’t been entirely trapped in a cave of desperation, but much of this year has been painfully boring. Or just depressively boring, aka not the worst but when I’m alone and don’t have plans, my brain convinces me I have no friends and no life and I’ll be alone forever. This is extremely frustrating/distressing to me since it feels like any/all my meditation/anxiety reduction/zen/confidence/trust in the universe that I had curated was washed away at the end of last year. Or, I have to unearth it–carve it out from beneath layers of self-criticism, negative self-talk and heaps of insecurity and shame that the shitstorm of last year dumped on me.
These days, life is gently returning to ‘normal,’ including a much-anticipated switch back to working on campus, aka isolation reduction. The past two weeks, I even wrote in my planner for the first time all year! All year! Maybe it’s the vitamins, maybe it’s the weather, but I do feel like there might be something worth writing.
The fuller truth is, though, that the biggest change this year has been not working at the library. As much as it burned me out to work a part-time on top of a full-time, it has really sucked not being there. I now realize that my library was most of my social life and my local family. Missing my people aside, I did get most of my ideas from interactions from work–who is the Angry Librarian if I’m not a librarian anymore?
That just leaves Angry, and that doesn’t seem to fit–not working in a customer-facing public service job means my anger is totally gone! hahahahaha just kidding. Mostly, I just don’t think the Angry 9-5er has the same ring to it, nor are my musings particularly interesting without a bookish context.
However, until my blog identity crisis resolves, here is a list of things I was almost going to write about during my months of silence. It’s a start.
- Running through the retirement community next door as a strong gust of wind pulled a barrage of helicopters from a maple tree onto the sidewalk, I passed a gentleman and we remarked about how cool it was as the little seeds pelted us and the ground in such numbers
- Running on the sidewalk, I passed two people and the woman told me “good for you!” unprompted (seriously, kindness from strangers is so great)
- Running on the trail, any day the sky was that pure, bright blue (with or without puffy white clouds)
- FaceTime (surprise or scheduled) with my friendos who moved to another state
- Assorted loved-one time
So, it seems there will be a forthcoming longer thing about running, but overall I’m crawling out of my slump. I’ll do my best to post again before it’s a new year!
The Angry Librarian 