This season of life has brought both support systems and solitude. Making space for just myself has been essential in the sea of change. When I am by myself, there’s less pressure to be ‘on’ and I can do nothing or everything (there really is no in-between). I am not alone, but I am okay when I find myself solo.
One recent shift is that I am no longer mourning previous relationships. I am not sad over my last breakup. It took a couple months, but I am free. Being solo and independent after 6 years of a handful of relationships back-to-back, this newfound proclamation of who I am (without anyone else) feels freeing, assuring, uplifting. I don’t need anyone else to make me happy because I serve that role. Being whole by myself is such a gift. I do whatever I want, on my own timeline. It is seriously the best feeling to know satisfaction comes from me. It’s a quiet confidence.
I have a handful of people who I can shed a defense mechanism of being something/one I’m not. Grad school is an environment that encourages extroversion, often manifested in cleverness. Such overconfidence isn’t a real presentation of who I am. Instead, my outlook and personality manifest as sometimes dry and occasionally bubbly. Thanks to finding a support system, I don’t have to present to them. There’s a handful of people who just get it.
Navigating life, school, and work is easier in shared company with people in similar trajectories. For example, I sometimes relate to an older cohort more, because many of them are also balancing work and school like me. Plus, a lot of them have a social justice, introvert bent like me. They don’t care if I am clever, pretty, quiet, or loud. And I don’t mind if they need an escape outside of school, so mutual support looks like spaghetti or coffee dates, late nights in the library (where I need help with R, and they need help with citing), and hand hugs. Amazingly, some of these folks I just met a couple months ago and yet we’ve shared so many experiences. School is difficult, but friends share in the success and struggle.
My inner compass has a quiet confidence of who I am.
Much of this inner compass work has allowed me to give space in recognizing who I am without anyone. But this word for the year has also helped me see what I stand for. I am not sorry about how I show up. While that person is often sunshiny and smart, I know I am sometimes silent on issues. Historically, I’ve struggled to share what and who I support in the past, due in part to not wanting to affect the environments. Keeping the peace mattered more, and so sometimes people thought I believed the same as them, even going so far to think I voted similarly to them. I blamed my career in marketing, too, that I was sometimes public-facing so couldn’t share.
But neutrality doesn’t serve. And I can use my (small) platform to serve. Acknowledging how I show up in different spaces and on the political spectrum is one way I defend myself and give voice to issues I’ve been silent on. Yes, I am learning to share my story, and it’s sometimes fragmented. Just talking writing about how I want to talk/write, going forward, is difficult. It goes against this weird self-censorship, but having an opinion (and a space for it) is a gift.
I am learning to own my physical time and space, and I hope to shift that to a virtual ownership, too. In the last few weeks, I have shifted from job to job, class to class. Since my time is divided, I have to ‘read the room’ quicker. And that also means owning what’s been neglected, like relationships, gym time, and sleep. And now I want to own my digital presence, too.
What are things that I haven’t discussed here, or could deep-dive into? I have shared some of my journey with grief over Grandma, my pup, the last chapter of my life. Giving space for that has led to some self-compassion and empathy from others. By sharing pieces of my story, I have begun healing because I continue to find wisdom and understanding from others’ shared experiences. There’s love in grief.
And I am thrilled to share that the biggest shift is not grad school, it is that I am no longer living in a space of suffering. Certainly, grief comes and goes, and I am not happy all the time. But every day, I am truly grateful and engaged with work, school, ideas, and people. When I feel anxious, often over missed opportunities, I acknowledge the feelings. And now know with certainty that this too shall pass. I truly feel satisfied by how my life looks and feels. I am grateful for feedback, spaces of learning and growing, and new friends.