It’s been a rough week. I have been able to type that almost every day this year, and have it be accurate – more on that in another post – but nonetheless it’s true. Migraines, swollen hands, skin fitting not right, irritations to the touch, lack of sleep; it’s been the entire gauntlet of everything. So on Thursday night, pretty much the last thing I wanted to do was go to a latke party. I didn’t feel well, it was going to weather, there would be not only people but strangers. I finally ended up dragging myself out of the house, naturally compounding everything by guaranteeing we’d be late.
Not the most perfect set-up in the world for an introvert, but it was and I’d committed.
One of the weirder things about my current life is just how much time I spend around people in bioethics – either because I’ve gone to a conference or I’m judging something or I’m at a meeting or, yes, even just because I’m at a latke party. I’ve been struggling to deal with that now, for years. Who am I? How do I introduce myself? Do I share The Story? How do I explain what I know and why I know it, but also why I’m not “using it” in any way most folks would consider measurable or meaningful?
For the last few years, I’ve stuck with enigma – the sort of half smile and promise to tell the details later, over a drink, bribe me with chocolate – or taking a deep breath and dumping it all out and making sure it’s clear I don’t want to talk about it, thanks. A few people have gotten the full measured story over a conversation, but not many.
It’s weird. It’s so defining. It was almost a decade ago, but it still looms large over life. It always will, as long as I’m tangental to the field, working in or near it, married to a rising star.
For whatever reason, Thursday’s latke party was different. When it came up – who am I again, why do I know all this? I was able to address the situation conversationally, even cheekily. It ended up creating a lot of laughter, a lot of sympathy, and I think at least a small measure of respect. And it got me thinking about how we define ourselves, for ourself and for others.
I read an interview today with Mara Wilson; it was published back in April but for some reason landed in front of my eyes today. It might have been the best day, because I was already mulling similar things – how do you define yourself when it feels like everyone knows who you were, even if it’s not who you are? 1 Mara left acting for writing, and she talks a bit in this interviews (and others) about her long effort at distancing herself from acting, of asserting herself, not wanting to be associated with that image.
Well. I can relate to that.
I can also relate to this:
I’m always going to be associated with that image, and I might not want to be reduced to that image, but I’m always going to be associated with it. So I’m working on embracing it.
Ends of years are arbitrary times, picked out on calendars for reasons that don’t have a lot of meaning any more. I don’t tend to place much faith in them, or superstition, but it’s hard not to think that those words landed in front of me now, just when I needed to contemplate them in front of the blank slate of a new year.
I don’t know much, and the path isn’t terribly clear – on days when one foot in front of the other is hard physically, that doesn’t make things any easier – but I do know that I can embrace the things that define me, I can be witty and charming, I can catalogue beneficial things I learned. I can laugh. And that’s a start.
Lions. ..
My story isn’t like yours, and yet there’s some similar things. And I have those same issues of trying to embrace, trying to distance, trying it all. I haven’t found my comfy spot yet. I don’t know if I ever will. And even without a spouse in the field, it’s weirdly defining for me still. Less than a decade, though, I suppose.
I guess I’m just trying to say I’m with you and also trying to learn and catalogue as you are. Much luck, friend.