Moojinorbit

Not that I don’t like being back in the classroom. That part’s nice, plus I’m teaching a new course about Political Forgiveness that promises to be emotionally and philosophically rewarding, though an existential rollercoaster. Already the ten brave souls who signed up for it have showed courage and psychic stamina in the face of overwhelming topics like forgiveness of Nazi doctors who conducted meaningless genetic experiments on children at Auschwitz. (Great, now onto incest survival!) My other class, Religion in American Politics, I’ve taught for years, though always with new material. It usually goes well and should this time, but for the fact that I have a big, verbose, dominating OAF in the class, whom all of my colleagues have warned me about, and whom I’ll have to find subtle and overt methods to control so he doesn’t ruin the fun for everybody.

Mostly, the transition chafes because of how easy it is to feel bombarded with details and distractions. I’m seriously going to find a way to try to work at home at least two days a week to avoid the tsunami of the office, where people are constantly knocking on the door, maybe just to say hi or maybe to get a signature, maybe to deliver a package, maybe to ask where Professor So and So’s office is because they can’t fricking READ name tags next to doors. But staying home won’t keep me from the piling on of emails that happens when students have questions to ask or things to tell you about their mononucleosis or their ailing grandmother, which they always do. I have seen with mine own eyes that some of my colleagues are more graceful and gracious with the myriad annoyances that come with teaching, but I personally find myself taking a lot of deep breaths and trying not to scream. It’s part of the job, I get it, but it chafeth.

The night before last, my eye caught on a line in Lisa Kogan’s column for O Magazine. She was talking about women over 40 and the weathermarks of experience, and she tossed out, “We are very tired–we’ve thought seriously about penciling in a nervous breakdown for ourselves, but we’ve been through everything the world has to throw at us so many times that it’s damn near impossible to get nervous about much of anything.”

Now, I don’t know about the second part of the sentence, because most of the women I know are still capable of getting nervous, even if they’re mostly undaunted. But that first part about penciling in a nervous breakdown resonates. First, you gotta pencil it in because you’re so committed to all the details that it’s hard to imagine stopping for even one day. And/or the only way we know how to deal is to stay more or less “in control,” which means that nervous breakdowns have to be scheduled. But flashing before my mind’s eye even now are all of you, all of us, with everything we’re juggling, like

• kids, daycare, coparents, ear infections, craft projects, screaming, cereal all over the floor
• mothers dying, degenerating, self-destructing, persevering, calling, not calling, crying, having boundaries, not having boundaries, enjoying health, losing health
• getting to work on time, somehow remembering all the 144 individual items you have to bring with you in three bags or less
• navigating the needs, whims, and personalities of the supervisors, senior colleagues, partners, chairpersons, and condescending administrators
• managing email, Facebook, LinkedIn, the blogs, the news, the New Yorker, the weather, the recycling, and the compost
• installing the eco-friendly lights, the batteries in the smoke detector, the carbon monoxide detector, the alarm, and the freaking furnace filters
• compiling the briefs, the summary judgments, the articles, chapters, books, reports, Excel files, grant summaries, IRB protocols, course proposals, assessments, and direct reports
• trying to stay on diet, control the drinking, eat more fiber, get enough protein, find time for snacks, brush teeth and somehow still floss
• walk the dog, feed the cats, clean the fish tank, sweep up the dead bird, keep the mice out, and change the pillows enough to avoid the dust mites
• oh yeah, and manage to get to the gym enough to make it worth it

My personal list reflects only a fraction of those enumerated above, and yet I get all nervous breakdowny periodically. Like yesterday when after a long insomniac night spent tossing and turning, eventually moving to the couch, I couldn’t summon enthusiasm or energy for anything I had to do. I felt like dog doo–that is, if dog doo feel morose and self-pitying and pathetic. Luckily it was a work at home day, and I had a little flexibility (though not really; I have so much to do there is not possibly enough time in the month to do it). But I was–for once–worrying about money and why I’ve been living check to check my whole adult life even though I’ve made so many changes, blah blah blah, and am I really in the right career, and will I get this stuff published, etc. I just got stuck in a hole for whatever reason and started shutting down. Email was a mountain I was trying to scale in a 1920s wheelchair.

Luckily, Grandpa (Kris) faked sick at work, left early, and rescued me. We went to PetsMart, where we bought new tropical plastic decorations and picked out three new fish for the 50-gallon fish tank Katie bequeathed to her (the moving of which is a whole other blog). After getting home and introducing the new fish to the eight others in the tank, I pulled up a chair and let myself become transfixed by their world. I must have sat there for an hour, gazing into the tank, like a kid (oh, and maybe a little stoned, too). And then we watched Finding Nemo in its entirety on the new flat screen. I laughed and screamed and rooted for Nemo, Dora, and Marlin. And everything I was supposed to do got scrapped. And it made me feel a million times better. I even caught up on my reading when I got home.

So now I’m back at it, fresher and more optimistic. Good case for penciling in a minor meltdown, at least.