I just ran into my high school English
teacher on the sidewalk. I haven't seen her in at least 10 years. I
don't like running into people from the past at this stage in my
life. I am unemployed. By choice, according to some, by necessity
according to those who know all too well the nauseous gut feeling of
working for a boss who treats you as though you are a chimp playing
at the game of “work”. I know I'll find another job; I'm not too
worried about it. I know I left the old one for all the right reasons
(and then some). But North American social norms define us and our
success level by our job titles.
Mrs. D, through no fault of her own,
asked me the same question every human at every slightly awkward
social gathering has ever asked another human they've just met: “what
do you do?”
How to respond to such a question.
What's new about me in the last 10 years? “Well, at 2 pm on a
Thursday, I walk my dog to the park and buy him some ethically
sourced fish-based food, because I cringe at the idea of
factory-farmed meat now. I read a lot, and I see a lot of friends
that I perhaps neglected while I was working. I job-hunt, in the
loosest sense of the term, and I go outside while the sun is hot and
my afternoons still belong to me for the time being. I did a boatload
of travelling, and will again as soon as I can bank another chunk of
money. I am obsessed with bubble tea, I ran a marathon last year, and
I'm toying with the idea of packing up and moving to another city on
a whim.”
“Oh, I was working for a shelter. And
now I'm kind of, you know, looking for some new, animal-related
thing.”
“You're not working as a journalist?”
“No... no I didn't end up doing
that.”
“Well good for you! Great to see
you!”
It's not your fault, Mrs. D. If our
roles were reversed I would have blurted out the exact same canned
lines. But still, after I walk away from this typically scripted
interaction, I feel ashamed. I no longer have any interest in working
as a journalist (isn't it fun how that's the most important lesson I
learned from J-school?), but it somehow feels like I failed at the
thing I was “supposed to do”. Teachers (and parents, and pretty
much everyone involved in your life) form expectations of what your
life will look like as an adult, and there is some part of me
(Sadness, step back from the emotional control board) that deflates a
little every time I chat with someone who knew the “old me”.
This is nonsense, however. Current me
is awesome. She is smarter than old me, wiser, much more
well-travelled, and generally confident and comfortable in her own
skin. And she refuses to be defined by a job right now. It's just a
shame that all that information doesn't fit into 60 second sidewalk
banter.
Well will you look at that, Mrs. D. The
mere sight of you still makes me run home immediately and write an
essay. You've still got it.
