Between Boom and Crisis

"How's it going?" I asked once I'd settled my body, face down, onto the massage table.

"Not bad," said my shy and contemplative massage therapist.

"You have enough business these days?"

"It's always good if I'm between boom and crisis," she sighed and then dug her powerful thumb into my stress spot just behind my scapula on my left shoulder.

I liked that idea. I like to think that contentment is about life not being too good or too awful, that somewhere in the middle of those extremes is a space (a wide one at that) in which to comfortably move about.

This philosophy fits my massage therapist. She doesn't seem like someone who panics too much or overly worries about life's roller coaster.

I'm taking notes. I've been a person who jumps from one extreme to the other -- too much to do and worry about or nothing to do and then I worry about that.

If I can keep emotion out of it, unemployment is an interesting place to be. Obligations are created not directed. If I am too busy it is of my own making. While I used to believe I had control of my own destiny when I was working, unemployment has offered me a much different perspective. Now I literally have choices and if I choose, for instance, to take a class then I am ultimately to blame when the course I'm taking offers up way too much homework.

Or if I choose to go to walk to the Farmer's Market and sweat all the way there, I have no one to complain to for I made the choice on an 80 degree day.

I suppose choice is always of my own choosing (for lack of a better word), but when I was elbow-deep in teaching -- grading papers, planning lessons, attending meetings -- there was often the feeling that I was being led around my life by my earlobe, someone else grabbing it and giving it a tug. Now, as I sit with a world of possibilities before me, I have to take my own earlobe in hand and tug in well-thought-out directions lest I end up doing activities that aren't really so appealing.

This is the case with the current class on Oceanography that I'm taking online. It's interesting, but it's overwhelming on many different levels. I am not a scientist, though I am very interested in science. I'm also no longer a teacher and the final project for this class requires that I write a long and involved lesson plan. Therefore I'm doing a lot of work for something I'll never really use. The assignments are complicated and require a great deal of time to comb through the readings and the videos and even dredging up more information on the internet so I can intelligently take part in the online discussions with science teachers from across the nation.

Of course, I am my own worst enemy since I hate to appear dumb and therefore work way too hard to achieve and "EE" grade -- "exceeds expectations" -- when and "ME" or "meeting expectations" would be enough.

Years ago I remember my therapist saying to me that my life's work was to be "good enough" not in the sense that I must actually BE good enough, but that I must see my work and myself AS good enough. Even in unemployment this concept is difficult to grasp.

Of course, I've only been unemployed for a month and technically speaking, my teaching salary goes through August so in actuality, I'm not unemployed yet. Still, the boom of overworking is still clear in my memory and the crisis of true unemployment -- financial worries, piles of bills unpaid, no job prospects -- is not part of my reality. In fact, what I've found is the more I let go of obligation, the more potential opportunities present themselves.

Just last night, for instance, having dinner with our good friends and their children steered me to another friend who is now the manager of a local bookstore. "She'd be thrilled to hire you," said my friend and inside I could feel this sigh of relief along with a deeper awareness that I have choices, I will always have choices.

Whether I grab my earlobe or not is up to me. That's the beauty of the wiggle room between boom and crisis. I can live there, in that space between, but it's going to take some practice. Good thing I don't really have any obligations yet. I can practice to my heart's content. Or perhaps I can practice to heart's necessity.