You know how as an adult, you feel this underlying sense of intense shame when you take time off…but you’re not travelling?
I went to a concert on Thursday expecting to be out late (spoiler alert: I wasn’t), and I only had one full day vacation day left for the year, so I figured why not use it on the Friday?
Turns out my choice of date was far from impeccable. I’ve had arguably one of the busiest work weeks of the year, and left the office feeling stressed.
Stressed because I didn’t have the time I needed to get things done.
Stressed because I feel like I was leaving my colleagues in the lurch.
Stressed because I just didn’t feel like my optimal self.
Case in point: a co-worker returned from maternity leave and I struggled to remember if I had met her before. Our exchange went as follows:
Employee: Sylvie, this is our Mat Leave Returnee. I’m not sure if you’ve been introduced to her.
Mat Leave Returnee: Oh, we’ve met before.
Me: Have we?
Mat Leave Returnee: …
Me: …
Mat Leave Returnee: I left in December; didn’t you start in July?
Me:
So overall, I did not feel very efficient, nor like my best self. What better way to cap off the week with abandoning ship with a hedonistic day to myself?
Needless to say, I did not enjoy my day off as much as I would have hoped.
I made the most of my time off: I did the laundry, I cleaned the house, I did a grocery shop for a meal I was preparing on the weekend.
And yet my mind would occasionally wander as I did chores…but who hasn’t Googled random trivia questions while tidying? (What is the highest prime number? Does Jessie J have a speech impediment?)
But my mind kept replaying the work week. Why was I so bad at my job this week? I felt like I disappointed people.
It’s funny how disappointment makes you more introspective. Am I cut out for my job? Am I even good at it? Where was my head at (and why do I always think of that one Pringles commercial with that last question)?
Inevitably, my thoughts bring me to my one absolute: I may suck at my job, but dammit, I can write.
Whenever I find myself falling into a pit of despair surrounded by my inadequacies, I remind myself that there is one thing that I do exceptionally well. And that is write.
I don’t know if I will do my current job my entire life. It may not be my passion, but I’d like to be competent at what I do.
With writing, it’s different. It comes naturally to me and I want nothing more than to thrive through my talent.
Like many, I’ve entertained the fantasy of making writing my full-time job; I want to be like the J.K. Rowlings and the Stephen Kings of the world who have made writing their livelihood, whose identities are intertwined in their latent ability to spin a good tome.
After indulging a bit in this fantasy, I’m immediately thrust back into reality: how can I hope for such greatness when I’m still grappling with an undercooked manuscript?
I finished the first draft of my novel in May. Since then, I’ve glanced it sparingly, aware of the flaws, of the inconsistencies in my plot, my conflicts, my characters. I know there is some heavy lifting to be done in the way of revisions, but I’ve been paralyzed by the inertia of the task.
Summer is over and the weather has turned cool and dark with NaNoWriMo looming just a few weeks away; I feel ready to tackle the beast once more.
Attempting to craft a novel helps me realize that even inborn talent needs to be nurtured and refined. It’s like if I had the ability to manifest stone out of thin air – that wouldn’t inherently make me a sculptor. I would still have to put the stone to chisel and hew away the unnecessary parts to reveal the work of art buried within.
Conversely, perhaps I’m not good at all parts of my day job. But maybe I should excel at those points to keep me afloat, while I put more effort in the things with which I struggle.
I want writing to be my identity, but for now, being a reliable, employed member of society needs to be the main focus.
