Don't be Emotional

In the past 2 or 3 days, not to mention the past 23 years of my life, but in particular recently, I have been seeking the advice of my parents. I am at that post-graduate limbo of life where I have a job and an apartment and I pay my bills and such, but there is no one guiding me to these things, I am doing them myself, and it is often hard to feel confident or sure that I am doing the right things and making the right decisions. Specifically, I am preparing myself for my first ever job performance review. Now I have been reviewed and evaluated before, at school, and at work, but this will be my first real formal job performance review, and I am hoping to get a raise and more recognition for my value among other things.

In seeking the advice of my parents, one thing has been repeated by both my mother and my father: don’t get emotional.

Now, why, I ask, are the emotions the anti-professional? Sure I understand it. I should be objective and direct and confident, and for some reason “emotional” translates to weak and insecure. And it makes sense to me too. I want to stand up for myself, and assert myself, and advocate for myself because if I don’t who will. But why can’t emotions also play into the equation?

I know, I am a person with a lot of emotions. In fact, it’s kind of my thing. And I also know, my job is emotional. Not that emotions are inherent in the work that I do, but that I care, care deeply, about the work that I do, and I believe in the work that I do. It is emotional.

And why should I have to compromise myself and who I am for some antiquated patriarchal bullshit, which says that emotions are weak?

I’m not delusional. I’m not saying that going into a meeting and yelling, or crying, or being effusive in any way is appropriate or necessary or how I would act. But why is it that in order to be taken seriously in a professional way, one must be devoid of emotions?

Nothing is devoid of emotions! Nothing human at least, nothing living! So why are we so in denial? Why are we so to admit or accept our own vulnerability, our own mortality and embrace our emotional realities?

I will have my performance review, and I will be myself. My professional, intelligent, thoughtful, breathtakingly levelheaded and sensitive self. And I will continue to work in this world, for this company and others, and have emotions. It is what makes me, me. I am a caring and compassionate employee, colleague, friend, sister, and daughter. I will not lose my shit and be overrun with emotions. Nor will I deny myself and be something inhuman, and something I am not. And despite the sage advice of my beloved parents, I will have emotions, and I will not apologize for them.

Twenty

Twenty-four and So Unsure

Well nearly twenty-four. Actually, one month from today I will be twenty-four. I have been back from the Caribbean for nearly a week. And instead or rather, in addition to my normal post-caribbean slump, I have a distracting force helping me recuperate through this time – namely, friends. My beautiful friends Aiko and Tatiana have graced me with their presence in this southern city of Raleigh.

Aiko is on the verge of starting a 2^nd masters program in medieval and renaissance art in Belgium. Tatiana is on the verge of opening a brewery with her boyfriend in Los Angeles. And while on the surface each of us is doing something, school, work, relationships, the reality that we share, and hope to conceal from others, is that we are entirely 100% clueless about what we are doing with our lives. At least, I know I am.

We are children playing at adulthood, but there are no directions included, and this game doesn’t ever end either. Does one just wake up one morning in their late twenties and say ‘Ah yes, now I am an adult,’ does this continue to be a struggle throughout peoples lives, or is it just the newness of the experience? And why don’t people talk about this incredible confusing and stressful time. What is adulthood? And why do we have to achieve it?

Now in the summer, I feel like an adult. I have many responsibilities that are mostly about serving and supporting others. I am responsible for the lives, well-being, safety and happiness of my students, as well as for communication with the office and the students parents. I coordinate logistics, do dishes, paperwork, shopping, etc. Oh and sometimes I even get to teach diving. I work hard, and people depend on my working hard as well as my knowledge, expertise, and positive attitude.

Now in Raleigh, I feel that I go through the motions, the bare minimum at least. I go to work, I feed myself, mostly appropriately, I pay my bills, etc. But is that what it means to be an adult? To just survive, get by, live?

We each know what we are doing, but why is it that we are doing it? Are we happy? I certainly feel restless. What is next? Is there something next? After college graduation is the only next big milestone to look forward to getting married? When does all of this get easier? Does it get easier? When does going through the motions stop feeling like going through the motions and start feeling like life?

We are three bright, intelligent, passionate and diverse young women, entering a world of corruption in which we are the lucky ones. We have gotten through a college education, and have parents who love and support us, and have really nothing holding us back. And yet we find ourselves in this early-twenties purgatory of insecurity and ambivalence. There is no, next you should do this, or why not work towards that, that does not come from ourselves. There are no professors to impress or grades to prove achievement. There are no peers to validate or comfort us because are peers are all just as clueless as we are.

So what can one do? Continue to go through the motions and hope that eventually they feel like living. Hold onto and fight for the things we love in life, follow them and hope they lead us well. Trust ourselves that we will make the right life decisions, and trust that when we make the wrong ones, we have the self-awareness to know it. Hold onto our friends and loved ones with whom we can be honest, and speak our truths, fears, and reservations, speak giggles and jokes but share our fears too. For after all, in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make.

Now I think I will go wake those two beautiful women. It is 10am and I want to go to the beach, so we should get moving.