metaphortunate son (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
metaphortunate) wrote2012-07-07 08:33 pm
metaphortunate) wrote2012-07-07 08:33 pm
Entry tags:
under pressure
The time I went scuba diving, one of the most fun things about it for me was the ongoing feeling that I was getting away with something. Look, world! I'm underwater and I'm breathing! I'm not supposed to be able to do this! Reality, I thumb my nose at you!
Probably it was fun because I understood how and why I was breathing underwater. If you suddenly discovered you could breathe underwater, but you didn't know how, or why, or whether the ability might go away at any point? You might not do it even if you could. You probably wouldn't go very deep.
As I've talked about a bit, post-baby I've had a surprisingly deep pink shift in my gender identity. And what has been shocking to me is what a weight off it is now that I am no longer walking that fine line between heterosexually partnered and butch. How easy it is to buy shoes. How easy it is to decide what to wear to parties. My god - I wasn't even that butch, and I had no idea how much of my energy was bound up in simply not being as femme as women are "supposed" to be. I am not saying that I should have been dressing femme before. I shouldn't have been, because I hated it. But there's two ways of looking at it.
One of them is this: earlier in my life, wearing makeup and dresses made me feel trapped and miserable, and now it makes me feel daring and fun. Therefore I should not have done it then, and I should do it now.
But there is another, insidious, pervasive, subterranean way of looking at it, which is this: look, if the only reason not to do something is because it makes you miserable, if it's all in your head, why not do what you're supposed to do? Why not do what's easy?
I just got home from a rather large party in a nice suburban home where I was the only woman there with a job. It's been a year since I had the Junebug. We still live in the city. I still work nearly full-time. Around these parts, it feels like breathing underwater. Nearly half the people I know are living like I used to and they have no kids. Nearly half the people I know are parents and the moms have quit their jobs and mostly they live in the suburbs. I know a couple of working moms but their kids are older. We could survive without my salary. Sometimes it feels like the fact that I'm pretty sure I'd be sullenly unhappy as a stay-at-home mom in the suburbs is not a good enough reason not to do it. After all, it must be better for the baaaaaaby, right? That's why everyone does it, right? What problem am I missing about our current lives that we're going to pay for later? If everyone is running for the exit, do they know something I don't? When is this air tank going to run out?
Probably it was fun because I understood how and why I was breathing underwater. If you suddenly discovered you could breathe underwater, but you didn't know how, or why, or whether the ability might go away at any point? You might not do it even if you could. You probably wouldn't go very deep.
As I've talked about a bit, post-baby I've had a surprisingly deep pink shift in my gender identity. And what has been shocking to me is what a weight off it is now that I am no longer walking that fine line between heterosexually partnered and butch. How easy it is to buy shoes. How easy it is to decide what to wear to parties. My god - I wasn't even that butch, and I had no idea how much of my energy was bound up in simply not being as femme as women are "supposed" to be. I am not saying that I should have been dressing femme before. I shouldn't have been, because I hated it. But there's two ways of looking at it.
One of them is this: earlier in my life, wearing makeup and dresses made me feel trapped and miserable, and now it makes me feel daring and fun. Therefore I should not have done it then, and I should do it now.
But there is another, insidious, pervasive, subterranean way of looking at it, which is this: look, if the only reason not to do something is because it makes you miserable, if it's all in your head, why not do what you're supposed to do? Why not do what's easy?
I just got home from a rather large party in a nice suburban home where I was the only woman there with a job. It's been a year since I had the Junebug. We still live in the city. I still work nearly full-time. Around these parts, it feels like breathing underwater. Nearly half the people I know are living like I used to and they have no kids. Nearly half the people I know are parents and the moms have quit their jobs and mostly they live in the suburbs. I know a couple of working moms but their kids are older. We could survive without my salary. Sometimes it feels like the fact that I'm pretty sure I'd be sullenly unhappy as a stay-at-home mom in the suburbs is not a good enough reason not to do it. After all, it must be better for the baaaaaaby, right? That's why everyone does it, right? What problem am I missing about our current lives that we're going to pay for later? If everyone is running for the exit, do they know something I don't? When is this air tank going to run out?
no subject
Yeah, I would agree that being miserable is not easy, for me - the choice between "do what I feel is natural and take a big amount of social flak" (seriously, the things people yell on the street! the things they feel free to say in the supermarket!) and "do what society demands and feel horrible" sucks, but I'll still go with Door No 1, in no small part because it was hammered into me almost from puberty that I was a failure as A Girl, and in the great adolescent tradition of You Can't Fire Me, I Fucking Quit I decided I wasn't going to try to measure up to some apparent ideal I failed at right out of the gate. Of course I paid for this with terrible insecurity and self-doubt. Yahoo.
Sometimes it feels like the fact that I'm pretty sure I'd be sullenly unhappy as a stay-at-home mom in the suburbs is not a good enough reason not to do it. After all, it must be better for the baaaaaaby, right? That's why everyone does it, right?
This is the whole thing behind Betty Friedan - the idea that all those overeducated wives in the suburbs with their kids were going crazy with nothing to do. I think (been a while since I read the book, I'd have to check) the kids with working moms were happier and got along better. My mom wound up supporting us a lot of the time by teaching piano out of our house, which was kind of the worst aspects of both SAHM/working mom without the benefits of either.
no subject
Also, another aspect is, I don't want to think of myself as someone who is dependent on a job for happiness. I mean, isn't that kind of fucked up? To be happiest as a cog in the ol' corporate machine? Doesn't it say kind of bad things about me that historically I don't do well when solely responsible for structuring my days?
Mr. E says, of course, that whether or not it says bad things, it IS the case that historically when I am unemployed I slide into depression, so maybe suck it up and deal with reality. I like that guy.
no subject
Well, but your job is something you trained for and your career is something you really like to do, right? I do agree that in these modern times there is an absurd emphasis on Having a Job and Never Doing Anything Else, but that's not what you're doing. I do think we all, just as human beings, need jobs and careers and hobbies and projects and what have you - not "just" to make a living or fill up our time, but to provide that basic human need of "I can do something/I have done this." Generally, I think people who are unable to have that in their own daily lives are really unhappy. - Also, most people I know do much, much better with a structured day, even my workaholic husband who rarely goofs off. When he doesn't have an external schedule, it is a lot harder for him to just focus. And I think people who have depressive tendencies tend to do much harder without schedules. In fact a lot of the time that is what therapists of mine have focused on: setting a particular hour to wake up, a particular number of hours to goof off, when to take a walk, when to brush my teeth, &c. tl;dr I don't think it says bad thing about you, or your brain, or your capacity as a parent if you feel better with a job and an external structure - I think that's honestly just human.
Also, at some point, Bebe E is going to grow up, and move out, and he will no longer be anyone's job, except his own. Yeah, that is a looooong way away, and there might be extenuating circumstances that means he doesn't move out right when he's 18 or he might come back for a while later or whatever, but at some point he will be "free and flying". And I think it will honestly be just good for him if he has two adults modeling happiness at work, or even just going out and being _able_ to work.
Mr. E says, of course, that whether or not it says bad things, it IS the case that historically when I am unemployed I slide into depression, so maybe suck it up and deal with reality. I like that guy.
Mr E is very wise, but we knew that. - I mean that's one reason why they have the suck-ass Occupational Therapy in hospitals: ideally it's supposed to teach the patients, yes, you can do something, you can accomplish something here even if it sucks, altho all too often yeah it's just a stupid time-filler. (Also ahahaha all this is coming from someone unable to work, which is sorta hilarious. But take it from me! Not working can fuck you up!)