Vanity

I went for a hike yesterday with a good friend (Melinda) who, like me, is thinking of a mid-life transition. Hers seems bigger though as she's a microbiologist who has powerful ties with various world health organizations. Still, it was good to talk and walk through the clouds and fog around Mt. Rainier hoping for vistas where we actually might see something other than just the wildflowers.

"What scares you the most?" Melinda asked me as we waited for the snowy cap of the mountain to perhaps reappear again.

It was a complicated question. Actually, it was a complicated answer, which we tried to work out as we continued up the slope sweating and panting past yarrow and columbine.

1. I want to be as successful at my next job as I have been with teaching.

2. Success, I have learned, is something I feel externally and despite my efforts, struggle with feeling internally.

3. Therefore, I fear being SEEN as a failure.

This is hard to admit. It strikes of vanity and self-centeredness and all the things I thought I did not value. I don't value them now either, but it feels odd to see them in myself and I struggle to really accept them and not just rationalize myself into believing that it has nothing to do with how other people think of me and more to do with a deep sense of insecurity. I'm smart enough to know that insecurity and vanity are twin sisters.

For instance, next weekend is the Danskin Triathlon. I've signed up to do it, but have struggled with training tending to overdue it to the point of injury. If I decide to compete, I will be swimming, cycling and instead of running, walking. That's hard for me to accept not only because people will see me walking, but also because when the times are posted, my time will read as something vastly different from my previous times. My "failure" in other words, will be public and that fact makes me cringe.

I have conversations with myself about the irrationality of my thinking. No one cares about my time. No one cares that I walk. No one is purusing the time results to say, "Look how poorly she did this year!" Most Americans don't even consider participating in a triathlon and will, in fact, still be asleep when I cross the finish line. Still, the thought of being a public failure (or what I consider to be a failure) worries me and has made me consider dropping out of the race altogether.

This is just a race. Imagine the angst I'm feeling about switching jobs. "She went from being a successful teacher to being a dog trainer?" Or worse, "She went from being a successful teacher to being a failure as a dog trainer?" These thoughts keep me up at night and all the voices I hear debating in my head can't seem to find a solution I can live with.

Until this morning...well, in one area. I've decided to run the Rubin-skin (named for my puppy and my version of the Danskin), which is a race I run against myself...at the gym. I'll swim the half mile in the pool, then jump on the stationary bike for 12 miles, and then walk (yes, walk) on the treadmill for 3.1 miles and call it good. No pressure, no need to be pushing myself. No one to pass me. No one to judge me (not that they were in the first place, but at least this pushes the doubt from my mind). Just me, my body, and my own sense of accomplishment.

As for my career...the school year is about to start. I cringe at the amount of energy it will zap from me over the next few months and the sustainability I'll need to muster to carry on through the year, but I'm feeling as if I'm honing in on a plan.

1. Ask for a year's leave of absence. My only stipulation is that (if) when I return, I get my same job back.

2. Pursue dog training with enthusiasm and vigor (which isn't hard for me to do since I LOVE learning and LOVE dogs).

3. In a year, reassess.

On our hike, Melinda said that her brother once told her that he did not want to be a person who lived an unexamined life. This meant, of course, that the examining might be painful and all-consuming, but in his mind, it was better than living without thought. The trick is, I think, to learn to be comfortable with the tumult of an examined life, to accept that doubt brings meaning to one's life and is not a sign of failure.

For me, that's the difficult part...learning inside that my success is measured not by some unknown standards I perceive (or have fabricated) on the outside, but by the core values I have developed on the inside.

More importantly, I must learn to accept that vanity can drive me crazy as well as fuel my insecurity and therefore is not worth the effort.

Melinda and I both decided, as we sat at a picnic table eating our lunch and watching the clouds move across the glaciers, that perhaps the best way to deal with our mid-life crises was to just get a tattoo and move on.

Not a bad idea though the words of my own brother always stay with me -- where ever you go, you take YOU with you (tattoo or no tattoo!).

The hard work still must be done.