100 Days of Wonder – #28
It has been a gorgeous autumnal day today which I spent at our University Open Day talking to lots of prospective students. I like Open Days, they are full of excitement and hope and the promise of things to come. We are also one step closer to Halloween so I am a pretty happy bunny. I’ll talk more about Halloween in the next few days but the picture I picked is deliberately more autumnal than spooky. It was taken in September 2017 which is the only time I have been to Walt Disney World at a time of year that wasn’t January. I like autumn for all sorts of reasons but have realised that I actually just like having proper seasons where you have more than just a vague temperature difference between them. Here in the UK, I love the changes in colour. It’s not just the leaves on trees, it’s everything. They blue skies are somehow a slightly different blue, the grey that so often settles in at this time of year is a reminder that not everything has to be sunshine and roses all the time and the deeper darker colours of autumn just somehow make my soul smile. They are perhaps more muted, less extrovert and in your face than some of the bold spring and summer colours and that suits me. I love the mist rising from the river, the fog that descends, the way you can be stuck in a cloud all day but half a mile down the road it might be bright sunshine. I like the moody and the dark but I like it even more because it is interrupted with spells of warmth and brightness. I also like the idea of autumn as the first phase of renewal. Autumn signifies getting rid of the old to make time for rest before the new. I like that pattern because it so explicitly recognises the rest that comes with winter. It’s not entirely compatible with an academic year cycle through. So as my soul is moving to shedding its metaphorical leaves and leaving behind the things that no longer bring me joy, the academic year really just begins. As we move towards winter, we gear up to be busier than ever whether that is socially or academically with assessments, marking and seeing everyone before Christmas (why?) … and as we head into renewal, at least in our academic calendar now, we are actually getting into the finishing straight of teaching. So I think sometimes my soul is a bit confused. I get more reflective as autumn moves on and I try and be explicit about finishing things and not immediately starting something new. I try and move with the cycle that recognises the move from one thing to the next but with rest in-between them. That’s not always easy, but I suspect it is essential to doing things well and staying well.
100 days of Wonder – #25
I used my random day off to run at Bolton Abbey this morning and running is a great time to reflect. I never know where my brain will go but today it took me to something I overheard on the train a week or so ago (I have no idea what the actual conversation was about because it was a phone call and I only had one side of it). First the classic ‘Well everything happens for a reason’ which was quickly followed by ‘yeah but what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, right’ and then a little while into the conversation came my favourite ‘But all the things that have happened to you, they make you who you are, you wouldn’t be where you are now without all that’.
I have had a few comments on the picture for this post and others from the 2019 Disney trip. Apparently I look good and I look happy. I suspect the ‘good’ actually means ‘thinner than at almost any other point in your life’ but that’s a whole separate post. Anyway, when I look at the picture I definitely remember happy in that moment. I also remember the feeling of being marathon fit (I miss that). However, there is also real deep tiredness, there’s depression, there’s sky high anxiety, there’s doubt about work and next steps although it’s over 2 years before I eventually did make a move. So as I was running today, I was thinking about everything that led up to me in this photo and everything that has happened since and found myself furious at the sentiments I had overheard and actually have also been guilty of thinking if not actually saying. Everything happens for a reason? Fuck no. Even if we ignore current global horrors and just think about this in a really selfish ‘Jess’ little world’ way, I refuse to believe that the bad things that have happened to loved ones have a reason – in the sense that they lead to something more positive or meaningful in the future. They’re just bad things that happened to good people. As for what hasn’t killed me… well has it made me stronger. Doubt it. To be where I am in the photo and where I am now, happy in so many moments of my life, I must have been incredibly strong already. The career littered with toxic people and grade A narcissists didn’t make me stronger. I came through it because I was already strong. Those things made me more anxious, more cautious, more independent, more reluctant to ask for help and less trusting. They did not make me stronger. As for the ‘but they make you who you are and you wouldn’t be where you are now’… see previous sentence, we have a more anxious, cautious and suspicious me – that’s not a good thing. And yes, of course all of the things in my life make me who I am and without some of the experiences I wouldn’t be where I am now. To be clear, I like where I am now BUT it would have been lovely to, over the last say 12 years or so, not experience being off sick for months because I couldn’t actually get out of bed, not experience complete burnout and brain shutting down, not deal with almost daily micro aggressions and gaslighting. Think of all the joy and wonder that toxic workplaces can suck out of everything. So next time one of those meaningless platitudes pops into your head – whether you’re about to say it to someone else or to yourself, Stop. They’re just gaslighting. Being happy now doesn’t make past trauma ok. Being happy at some unspecified point in the future, doesn’t make something happening now worthwhile or ok. We can do better than that. As for the happy, good looking lass in the picture – I’m proud of her. She’s awesome.
100 Days of Wonder – #24
Yesterday I said I would write about the places in Disney I got to for quiet and calm (other than the Winnie the Pooh ride already mentioned). I haven’t got the headspace to find the photos this evening so instead let’s talk about sleep! Disney beds are comfy! The towl art we got from the mousekeepers last time was spectacular – we got something new daily and it adds a spark of magic. But sleep. It can be tempting at Disney to be on the go all the time. If you do rope drop to fireworks it’s a long day and the number of overtired children and adults is scary! For me part of the magic is being able to come back to the hotel for an afternoon nap. I rarely lie in at Disney and I like the fireworks but rarely have a really late night, but I do like an afternoon nap. But the fear of missing out and not making the most of the holiday can be real. It can feel wasteful to have a nap and sleep away the holiday. Bon Jovi’s Sleep when I’m Dead comes to mind… But that doesn’t make sense to me. I have always been exceptionally good at sleeping. Apparently I slept through early as a baby, I used to sleep 12 hours a night easily, I used to nap (completely sober) in nightclubs as a student. I can sleep. I watch all these people rushing round Disney, ticking things off the list, insisting everything is seen and done and everyone is tired and miserable and not really enjoying anything. Sleep could help with that! In fact sleep helps with most things. I have stopped trying to reduce sleep time to get stuff done. If anything I need to sleep more if work is piling up and I need to be efficient and productive. And I know this, I have always known this and yet every now and again I seem to forget. That’s a warning and one I am now much better at taking seriously. Lots of sleep for me is essential. 8 hours a night minimum and every so often a few days of hibernation are blissful. If there is one thing I really do know I am good at, it’s sleeping! And that makes me really lucky because EVERYTHING is better after a proper night’s sleep – particularly if you wake up at Disney!
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