musings on growth

My birthday is this week.

I gave up, a few years ago, the "OMG! I'm getting sooooo old!" sort of whining that seems to be considered required for women in this society (and I've not taken to dying my hair or having Botox injected, which is the other apparent option). Because, you know? The alternative to getting older is a whole lot worse than getting older is.

I am going to be 38. I know, in the grand scheme of things, that's not very old, but when you teach on a college campus, where most of the students are 18 to 20 years younger than you - it's good at making you feel old. I mention stuff I remember WELL - the Mt. St. Helens eruption, Reagan being shot, the Challenger explosion, and all of those are events that many of the students were not born yet for.

I remember the Bicentennial. (Which reminds me - I was dating a guy once and I realized things weren't goint to work when I mentioned remembering the Bicentennial and he piped up, "Oh! I was born that year." Um, yeah.)

But anyway. One thing I do like to think about is how I've grown and changed over the years. I can think of two big ways - one that was a change that happened a long time ago, the other is a more recent change.

Long-time ago change: I have become less self-centered/self-absorbed in, oh, probably the last 10 years. I am far better now at not taking things personally - I was talking last week about people who thought the Universe was out to get them when things didn't go how they wanted? I consider that basically an adolescent philosophy: the idea that the universe revolves around you and that things that happen are specifically aimed at you.

I'm not saying I don't get upset when my carefully-laid plans are upset, or that I'm not disappointed when the Exciting! Piece! of News! that I share with someone is met with a shrug and an attitude of "oh, I knew that already." I still stomp around a little and feel bad (especially if it's plans being upset), but I've kind of dropped the "Oh, why me!" attitude.

(I also realized this - I cry a lot less than I used to. It used to be, when certain little things happened - usually when I was alone - and I'd just sit down and WEEP. And wail. And generally go all drama-queen. And it was over stupid stuff. And thinking about it - even though really no one ever witnessed me - now, it embarrasses me).

I think perhaps age has also brought more emotional stability. I don't mood-swing quite as much as I once did, and I'm better at recognizing, "gee, I'm in a crap mood right now" and trying not to let it influence others.

(I've also become aware of something else: that I should not go more than 6 hours during the day without eating something nutritious. I think that was probably part of the source of some of the mood-swinginess. I wonder how much of the alleged "crazy" reputation women have - vide Bitter's tagline of "Women: we're all crazy" (or words to that effect) - is because so many of us are on self-imposed fasts, where we're eating badly, ignoring natural hunger, and living on strange combinations of foods or things that aren't foods. (I consider Slim-fast shakes to be a non-food). Or because we're eating crap. (I know I feel better and saner when I'm getting the necessary veggie and fruit and protien and all that servings in a day). At any rate: hunger for nutritious food, and the associated neurochemical changes that it seems to bring, make me kind of crazy.)

Anyway. Bottom line: less self-absorbed = big improvement. Not only in how I treat other people but in how I feel generally.

The second change is more recent.

You know the big mania (it's died down somewhat but you still hear it) about "living in the moment"? It's not totally bunk. There's a point at which you can be such a planner and such a worrier that you can't enjoy things.

I would find myself getting into bed to read at night, and then start thinking about the things I had to do the next day. Or when I took a little time to relax, I'd feel guilty because I was not working, and I started to think about the things I needed to do.

I'm slowly getting away from that. I've gotten a lot better, over the past year, at saying "I am working now; this is what I am working on. I am not going to worry about the other things that I have to do that I am not working on at this moment."

I have also gotten better at saying "I need my relaxation time." I have come to the conclusion that I work pretty hard. (Especially compared to some of the professors you see featured in the media. Even compared to some profs on my campus, if the things students tell me are true. I had a guy in my class last week complaining about another class, saying, "We don't learn sh*t in there! The guy has it set up as a "discussion" but almost everyone else in there is so stupid that we don't ever get anything done! He's not teaching us anything, I feel totally unprepared. Not like this class..." Now, granted that the last bit might be a little sucking up for my benefit, still...). I'm usually on campus from 7 am until 3 or 4, some nights even later, and most of the time (despite my blog here and the occassional comments on other blogs) is spent prepping, grading, or on research, if I'm not in class. And I often put in time on Saturdays working on research or catching up on grading.

And I need time to relax. I used to feel horribly guilty about that; I'd read about Famous Scientist X who moved an army cot into his lab and showered at the gymnasium so he never had to leave campus. Or about the woman who would spend fourteen hour days working on research for six days out of the week. And I'd feel HORRIBLE. Like I was wasting my life. Like, I was dissipating my powers on stupid stuff.

But, you know? After putting in three, fourteen hour days this past week, I cannot understand how someone who doesn't have a spouse/parent/grown child/houseboy taking care of their every "outside" need (like laundry and grocery shopping) manages to put in that kind of time without self-destructing.

I don't believe in that "work smarter, not harder" dictum (and in fact, it makes me rather want to throw up whenever I hear it), but there's something to be said for working hard for a few hours at a time, and then taking a break. I kind of wonder how effective those people who purportedly lock themselves in the lab really are.

And even at that, I am a different person. I cannot have a single focus on just one thing - I get bored too easily. And I tend to invest myself too much in single things - what if that thing fails? What if I spend 16 hours a day writing a massive grant proposal for five months, and then I get a letter back from the granting agency saying they don't think it's good enough? I think too many instances of that would kill me. (And I am NOT being melodramatic). I need to feel like I have successes in my life, even if they are small successes - a well-taught Sunday school lesson, a nicely-pieced quilt, even a good loaf of bread.

And to get back to the topic - I've become better at just sitting down and sewing, or reading, or watching tv at night and not thinking, ricki, if you were over in your office, what useful things you could do instead of "wasting" your life.

I still feel it SOMETIMES, but not as often as I once did.

I guess I can sum it up by observing that once I'm dead, my CV isn't going to matter as much. A few people read my papers, not many, and really, the majority of scientific papers are never read other than by the few people in the specific field. Do I really want to be remembered solely as a set of initials on a publication?

I think also working with the youth group has helped with this - it gives me the sense that I'm affecting people (even if just a few) positively: I know many people who talk about the youth leaders they had as kids, how those leaders were role models and made a big positive change in the kid's life. I don't know if I'm doing that, but I can hope. And to me, that's more important than getting more papers published.

Heck, even leaving behind a few quilts that my heirs (whoever they may be) can look at and think about my taste in color or pattern over is important to me.

I still need to work more on not-worrying about things (and that's another post for another time; I was musing this weekend if maybe "worry" is a basic animal instinct - considering that the worrier was probably the guy looking out for sabre-toothed tigers and stuff, and the mellow guy was the one who laid back to look at the clouds and wound up getting stepped on by an elephant - and if maybe overcoming our tendency to worry is as much a spiritual exercise as is overcoming other animal drives (like to overeat, or to mate with everything that is of the opposite sex and moves))

But I'm a lot better than I was.