So you think I would have been buoyed with hope yesterday as I slogged my way through keyboarding, professional development, back to keyboarding, and then to 10-key calculator class, but nope. I felt distinctly unsettled, and it only became more noticeable as the day went on. I got stuck in a traffic jam trying to go home for lunch: dead stop on the freeway, so I got off at Johnson Creek (that took forever) and finally headed north on 82nd. Stop and go, stop and go, all the way to my neighborhood. Lots of time to think. Lots of time to stew.
Even after my nap and a quick salad (lettuce, chicken, raw carrots, roasted beets, olive oil, and balsamic vinegar), I still felt uneasy, and it lasted until this morning. Now I recognize that feeling. It comes from being judged. Yep. That is what drives my discontent. I hate to be evaluated, I dread criticism, I rebel against being judged. Oh, poor me, someone found something that could be improved in my paper. My brain knows this is a good thing, that my work will be the stronger for it. My gut feels like it was punched. You'd think I would be used to it by now, after six years of this doctoral nightmare. You know what it reminds me of? The days when I sold my soul making art for people, taking orders, subsuming my creative self for money. Wow, good to know. This isn't the same thing. I do this for me. Well, for me and my backer, also known as my mother, my biggest fan and staunchest critic.
Today the experience of receiving constructive criticism has taken on a more nuanced, layered tone. It's like a kettle of really weird cosmic soup. My distaste for being judged fills most of the pot. It's the potatoes of my malcontented perspective. Stir in a profound dislike of rainy weather. Add a stubborn resistance to working, exercising, and being polite. Crumble in a general fear for the safety of people everywhere, and top it off with a fatalistic certainty that we've destroyed the planet. What do you get? A really nasty, bitterly depressed cup o' soup.
It is ironically comic that I'm drinking my cosmic cup o' soup in the context of the day before Thanksgiving. This day is the gateway to the happiest time of the year. Normally this is my cue to hunker down, but today my larder was empty. I braved the crowds to hunt and gather food at the store. People pushed baskets piled high with plunder. As I dodged their careening carts, I peered into faces, looking for signs of gratitude. Mostly I saw weariness, when there was any expression at all. I assumed they were all planning a big day of cooking, eating, and family. Me, I just needed the usual basic supplies to keep me going another three days. As I waited in line with other human robots for an empty U-scan station, I saw blue sky and sunshine outside the sliding doors. But by the time I wrangled my paltry pile of groceries through the checkout, the sunshine was gone, and it was raining again.
