I’ve been procrastinating on this project for quite a while now. I love writing and it’s one of the few things I feel comfortable doing. It’s one of the few things I feel I actually have a talent for. And yet, the past few years, I’ve avoided it. I’ve thought about starting projects, but pushed them off for days and weeks and months and even years. I always come up with an excuse: this week is too busy; I’ll start first thing on Monday; I’m not in the mood today, but I will be tomorrow. None of them are good excuses, but they seem all right at the time.
Isn’t it funny how we do that? It’s easier than we think to find time for the things we love. At the end of the day, none of these excuses are the real reason I choose not to write. Writing can be a little scary. No matter what you’re writing, fact or fiction, you’re sharing your deepest thoughts. You let your subconscious out to take the wheel and drive. Everything that you push down and keep hidden, every emotion you quell, every thought you suppress is waiting for this moment to break free. The words you write define you. Even if you never share your writing publicly, it can be frightening to learn what we’re hiding from ourselves.
So why am I finally facing my fear today? At the beginning of the month, I promised my friend I would do Camp NaNoWriMo. Our freshman year of college, we did NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month which takes place in November) and it became somewhat of a tradition, but I only succeeded the first year. Every year since I’ve failed miserably, making it maybe the first few days. I think I attempted Camp twice with the same results. Well, it’s now July 5 and do you want to take a guess at how many words I’ve written before this post? I think it’s probably obvious that number is zero. I’ve been using the same excuses as I always use: too busy, too tired, too unmotivated. Really I’m just not even trying. So when I went to go to work today, promising myself I would try once I got done work (which would have inevitably evolved into being too tired because I worked all day), imagine my great fortune when I got to my car and realized I didn’t have my keys. Any of my keys. I couldn’t use my car, get back into my apartment or get into my lab. I’m way too cheap to pay my landlord to let me back in, so I’m waiting for my fiancé to return from his Fourth of July escapades. I have a lot of time and my computer and I really don’t have any excuse not to: fate has backed me into a corner.
I suppose I could be sitting outside my apartment door, wallowing in self-pity, or I could call my landlord, hand over the fee, and then wallow in self-pity, but since both those options involve wallowing in self-pity, I’m choosing the only route left: finally confronting myself and putting the words down on the page (hope you’re enjoying my run-on sentences).
So far I’m happy with my choice. I decided to walk to a part of town called the Riverwalk. I’ve lived here for about eight years now and the river walk has been developed over the past couple years. I’ve really only been here to enjoy it once and only for a few minutes (and I didn’t actually do the walk, so much as walk to a railing and watch the river for a bit, before telling myself I had “important” things to be doing). It’s really beautiful and the pictures don’t really do it justice (partly because they were taken with my camera phone). I haven’t really been here because I told myself that the Riverwalk would be there tomorrow and I had things I had to do today. I often use that excuse to avoid going out. There will always be other opportunities is what I tell myself.
Instead I should tell myself “today’s as good a day as any”. Did I really need to spend eight hours at work today? Why can’t it wait until tomorrow? It isn’t like I’d get paid for the hours I put in today. It won’t make tomorrow any easier. Why shouldn’t I spend this gorgeous day outdoors, enjoying the sites I said would be there the next time, and finally writing the words I said I would?
For me that’s always been really hard. I’m truly a workaholic and sometimes it feels like I do it so people will admire me for being so hardworking. I started working as a child in my mother’s restaurant and I always worked as hard as I could so she would praise me, though it never happened. Eventually, I just kept working because I set that high standard and I didn’t want to be scolded for “slacking off”. I carried that standard into every job I’ve held since then and it feels wrong to be doing something fun instead of working. No one praises me for my hard work, my boss has just come to expect this level of progress from me and any time I don’t reach it, he expresses his disappointment. Co-workers hate me for “making them look bad”. I justify it by telling myself you only get out of a job what you put into it. For the most part that’s true, but even if I could work 24/7, I would never finish anything. There will always be more work to do. I get so tired that I make mistakes and, in the end, I’m barely more productive than anyone else, and potentially more costly. It isn’t efficient for me to work constantly and I miss out on so much that is important to me.
But, you know, it’s easier to be a workaholic sometimes. I avoid getting too invested in anything else, things that can end in disappointment or failure or loss. As a workaholic, I invest everything into my job, but those risks exist there too. Especially in research, I face a lot of disappointment and failure. I’m not sure why it’s different, maybe it’s just easier to move on to the next experiment or the next project without feeling the loss too heavily. I don’t think that’s true, so I’ll have to think on it a bit more.
I know I said I was a good writer and this post is clearly a not-well-written stream-of-consciousness journal entry, but that’s what I intend this project to be. I’ve struggled my whole life with being a perfectionist. Some people wear that label as a badge of honor, but it has cost me dearly like a chronic disease. I’ve started over on things that were of fine quality and wasted time trying to make perfect, things that were never going to be perfect. I think soon it will be identified as a seriously debilitating anxiety disorder, as it should be. I’ve been paralyzed by the fear of not being perfect and I know I’m not alone. I like to watch the YouTuber Hannah Hart and her YouTube show “My Drunk Kitchen” (I live vicariously through her drunken escapades), but, other than her entertainment value, she dishes out some great advice. She seems to struggle with some of the things I struggle with and she always talks about how she’s trying to be a better person today than the day before. I will never be perfect and I have to embrace that. I have to face that fear so I can at least work toward being a better person than I was yesterday.
I’m calling this project “The Other Side of the Window”. At the university where I work, many of the researchers study chronic pain. One researcher, whose parents live with chronic pain, has talked about what it’s like to live with a loved one who suffers from chronic pain. He says it’s like looking at them through a window. Having had loved ones who have had chronic pain or other chronic diseases I can understand that sentiment. You feel separated from them, you can’t reach out to them like you could before. You see them, but not as clearly, they seem a little fuzzy, a little out-of-focus, not like they were before. It’s a good analogy. But if living with a loved one who has chronic pain is like looking at them through a window, then what is it like to be on the other side of the window?
Recently I’ve been diagnosed with chronic pain myself and I’ve finally accepted it. I wanted to start this project to talk about the other side of the window. I’m not arrogant enough to think that my side of the window is the same for everyone living with chronic pain. Pain is different for everyone and the way it affects them is different and my life is not the same as anyone else’s. I hope to confront some of the stigmas of chronic pain sufferers, but this is only my side of the story. I don’t know how many people will read my story, but I think I’ll put it out here because maybe something I say will resonate with someone. Maybe someone else with chronic pain or perfectionism or who is a workaholic will be encouraged to speak out themselves and confront their own fears. Even if that doesn’t happen, this is how I’m choosing to confront my own fears.
I don’t want to be paralyzed by fear. I want to keep moving forward. I want to be a better version of myself today than I was yesterday. I want to be a strong person, a courageous person, and an inspirational person. It isn’t enough to want that and really it’s a simple as just being that person. I have to admit that it’s easier said than done, but I’m going to work towards it. I will stumble and sometimes I will fail, but I’m at least going to try. I have a piece of paper that I always carry around with me that has two phrases: “Every storm has an ending; every night a new morning” and “Per ardua ad astra” (translated “through adversity to the stars”). Today, I’m adding two new phrases: “Be a better person today than you were yesterday” and “Today’s as good a day as any”.
Today, I am a better person than I was yesterday.
The Other Side of the Window 