Overwhelm

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I’m not sleeping much. I lay awake at night, wondering how I’m going to make a dent in my eternally long to-do list, how to keep the many people in my life from getting too upset with me, how to keep perspective.

I drift off to sleep around 3 or 4am, none the wiser.

For two years since I’ve started this blog, it’s probably been obvious I’ve been on a kind of quest. A seeking of a better self? A digging and clawing from the depths of an unhealthy lifestyle to one that resembles normalcy? Even better than normalcy to something that could be (lord help me) like self-actualization?

I think I’ve done pretty well, all things considered. I eat vegetables now, I exercise regularly, I am carrying out days that probably seem — from the outside — idyllic. I get to write and draw and sew every day. I’m publishing a book! These are all unquestionably amazing.

You see, I’m terrified.

Grateful, but scared out of my wits. And I had a little meltdown last week, the kind K gets when she’s had too much sugar and too little sleep.

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A few weeks prior, I had lunch with a friend that I hadn’t seen in months. Technically, she was my old boss from my most recent corporate job. You know, the one I got fired from. Ironically, she asked me if I would consider coming back. Not on a full-time basis or anything, but short-term. The money would be fantastic. The project, she assured me, would be easy. This was actually the second time they’ve asked me. The first outreach was about a year ago and back then I couldn’t say no fast enough. This time, I hesitated to decline, even though I knew that the project would turn out to be crazy-making and time-sucking and soul-draining.

I get to do what I love every day. But in exchange, I open myself up in uncomfortable ways, and I risk face-planting in a big pile of humiliation. My blog isn’t hugely popular, and that’s fine with me because I realized early on that professional blogging is clearly not my cup of tea. I’m quirky and what I have to offer is not for everyone, and I spend hours crafting these posts because I find it fulfilling. I can’t claim that what I’m currently doing is considered a career — books are notoriously hard to sell. I don’t have a lot of illustration clients. I make less money than an average textile worker in Bangladesh (book advances don’t amount to much when you’re an unknown first-time writer/illustrator). And I probably work about the same hours as the Bangladeshi though my working conditions are luxe in comparison. We’re not rolling around in mountains of dollar bills (we often joke that we hope to be hundredaires one day, because we’ll never get a shot at becoming millionaires), and M’s job situation is one of instability.

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I worry that I’m being selfish by not getting a “real” job. I know that I want K to see that it’s possible and more than okay to strive for meaningful work that lights you up, regardless of what others say. But as I’ve been pondering lately, I don’t want her to feel entitled and unrealistic either. I know that I’m beyond fortunate to have this time to pursue what feels right. Then the practical side of living rears itself toward me. Bills, food, shelter, fabric. The essentials, obviously.

Two years ago, when I found myself with no job and too much time, I made a list. On it I wrote down everything I wanted to do, things I thought I might enjoy as a “career” — no one was going to see it, so I went all out, tossing reality out the window. I found the list a couple of months ago, and had forgotten all about it. The main items on my list included the following:

– Start a blog
– Write and illustrate a children’s book
– Contribute to magazines
– Teach a sewing workshop
– Have an art show
– Get illustration clients
– Design clothes

I’ve accomplished almost everything on my list in 24 months. I’ve learned so so much. The positives have far outweighed any negatives, but here’s the thing: some aspects are heart-breaking and hard, no matter how many goals I achieve. I’ve been surprised by people who became resentful or competitive or distant; disappointed by the disproportionately meager monetary rewards; embarrassed about feeling like I’m bragging when I’m just so shocked and delighted that my list is materializing; wondering about getting paid to do what I love — would I start feeling like it’s drudgery? And I’ve been side-swiped by the crushing self-doubt and emotions of fraudulence. That’s probably the biggest one…that feeling of “who do I think I am to publish a book? to cast out my ramblings in a public realm like a blog?” I get sad that we have crappy health insurance and that M and I have the same anxious money discussions over and over and over. That job offer was so tempting — maybe I can do the project while maintaining everything else, I thought. But I know myself, and I would get immersed in the corporate world again, become unhappy and unhealthy and push out all the wonderful things I’ve painstakingly and slowly built these last two years.

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So I’m a little overwhelmed these days. Maybe it was that lunch that reminded me of the bad days. Or maybe it’s because I’ve crossed off one more thing from my list, which I’ll share soon and I fear I may have bitten off more than I can chew and there will be even more uncertainty. Or, and this is probably the best explanation, maybe it’s because I’m not sleeping. I always have to remember that I have a health condition that responds in toxic ways to excessive stress. I’ve kept it in check for quite some time now, and I try to be diligent about taking care of myself, but sleep has never come easily to me.

After giving it a lot of thought, I decided not to accept the job offer even though it might make things easier (or not, who knows). It’s funny, one of M’s favorite books is The 50th Law. Whenever I get discouraged and tell M that maybe I should just go and get a regular job, he vehemently tells me, “No, you gotta go for it, this is definitely your thing. You’re the 50 Cent of the sewing world — you have to see it through.” I’m not sure that the drug-lord-turned-rapper analogy works, but I’ll take it. I’ll continue to figure out edible dishes from canned tuna, and I’ll hold onto the supportive people and ride out the discomforts of change and the evolution that comes with it, and I will see if I can continue to show K that yes, this whole making-dreams-come-true business is possible. It’s not easy, it’s messy, and a lot of sacrifices may be required. And often, it doesn’t feel exactly the way I thought it would. But it feels real. Like I’m being the most genuine version of myself. And for me, that is worth everything.

22 Months and 3 Weeks

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I purchased this tank top from H & M the second week of July in 2012. I remember this because I was frantically scouring the mall for clothes to take with me to a family vacation. That’s what I always did for vacations; a profoundly unhealthy habit of accruing a whole new wardrobe just for a short trip. Cheap clothes that fell apart in minutes.

I haven’t bought a single ready-to-wear clothing item since. Almost two years for both me and K! Okay, I’ve gotten some socks and underwear for K, but aside from that, nuthin’.

A more logical person would have waited until the two-year mark to talk about this since “22 months and 3 weeks” is rather awkward and underwhelming to say. However, M was having a rapidly depleting underwear crisis and because of his refusal to wear handmade boxers, I went to The Gap two days ago. That stirred up an eddy of emotions for which I was unprepared, and I wanted to jot them down before I forgot. This could also be considered a long-winded precursor to my thoughts on Me-Made-May that I’ve been trying to organize in my head (which will be much shorter, I promise).

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So here are the sentiments…

Emotion #1: Surprise
It’s not as though I haven’t been in any retail stores in the last couple of years, but I haven’t spent any extended time looking at RTW clothes up close in a long time. I was surprised about a couple of things. First, how simple all the clothes seemed to be. “I could make any of this,” I thought. Not in an I’m-all-that-and-a-bag-of-chips way or anything, but with genuine astonishment. I kept mentally deconstructing all the clothes that caught my attention, and filed through my brain archives of patterns I had at home. For most of the garments, I didn’t even need a pattern.

The other surprise was K’s behavior. She was with me and was helping me pick out M’s underwear (yes, I know that’s weird, but she loved it and instantly gravitated toward the brightest pinks). What I couldn’t get over was how she completely ignored the kid’s clothes. Not even a glance at the sparkly tees. She was obsessed with the flip flops because I’d been promising those for a while, but it was as though she knew instinctively that I wouldn’t buy her any clothes or maybe she has too many already so she’s not interested. Either way, I was agog the whole time.

Emotion #2: Peace
Apparel stores have always been minefields for me. It was a constant struggle to find clothes that fit or looked half-way decent on my abnormally long torso, too big chest, short legs and non-existent waist, and it was hard to tell what would set me off into a very unhappy place. It could be mild exasperation at the way a top emphasized a bulge, or it could be a mental tirade at myself for not sticking to my diet when a pair of jeans shortened me to troll-like proportions with elephantine legs. In extreme cases, I held back tears of frustration (oh so embarrassing and oh so true) because the clothes and mirrors reflected a vision that was so far from what I’d hoped. The clothes all seemed to be meant for statuesque or skeletal frames — all wrong, that’s how I felt.

Once in a blue moon, though, I would find something flattering, and for those rare moments, I shopped constantly, like Juan de Leon Ponce searching for the Fountain of Youth (which is allegedly a myth, by the way). Maybe this store or this season will have clothes to make me look normal, to make me feel pretty, I would think. I was horrified on a cerebral level that I was so caught up in the superficiality, but I still partook regularly in the emotionally charged ritual. Trying on clothes was like having the mother of all PMS attacks. Imagine when I actually had PMS!

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In The Gap with K a couple of days ago, I didn’t feel even a glimmer of an urge to buy anything. Sure, we got the flip flops and I tossed in some socks for K along with the underwear. But this was all pragmatic and easy and there was no desperate sensation attached. I wasn’t trying to fill a void in that clichéd way through material goods. Part of the reason I went on a fabric fast is because I wanted to make sure that I wasn’t continuing the same cycle with fabric. I’m happy to report that I’ve been mostly successful on the fabric front too (there were some necessary purchases but they were minor).

Through sewing and making my own clothes, I finally feel….unemotional about my uniquely shaped body. That it is what it is, and it’s a good, strong, functional body. Peace.

Emotion #3: Triumph
And that realization was a triumphant one. I felt like I’d conquered a shameful secret, or perhaps let it out into the wild to roam elsewhere far away from me. And with triumph comes…

Emotion #4: Freedom
I have so much to say about the media and the imposed ideals and trends and negativity, but I will spare you. On a sunny afternoon in a shop at the local mall, the overarching emotion I experienced was freedom. “I don’t need any of this,” is a powerfully freeing thought. “I can make something better that I love,” is an even more powerfully freeing thought.

We left the shop, I took K’s hand and that was that. Oh, and she wore her new flip flops all the way back home:

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Type A Summer Vacay or How I’m Not Effortless

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There are thirteen more days of school left for K, and the ginormous maw of summer has been inching toward me, begging me to feed it with worthy activities.

I started a little late on the summer camp sign-up process this year, and here in Seattle, it’s like a competitive sport to get access to the various “enrichment” programs. Most of the popular ones are filled by early April, and you have to be aggressively Type A to have your ducks in a row so that you’re not stuck with the most expensive or least appealing camps (e.g. “Nooooooo, not Math camp, Mommy!!”). In actuality, I’m a step down from the traditional Type A personality — more of a Type A minus — so I’m missing a few ducks at this juncture.

At first I thought that I would be uncharacteristically mellow and just let summer unfold organically with no structure or scheduled activities. But that’s not me. I’m just not the loosey goosey sort, as much as I’d love to be. I remember how — as part of a college graduation present — I went to Europe with two of my friends, and I beleaguered them with my incessant need to have a specific itinerary every step of the way. Maybe this makes me unfun and unspontaneous, but despite a few blunders, my OCD travel agent skills often saved the day throughout our month-long summer excursion.

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I’ve always been told I look busy, even when I’m not doing anything. This came in handy when I had a corporate job in which I actually had days when I had nothing to do. People assumed from my…what? knitted brows? intense gaze at the computer? that I was frenetically working on something at all times.

And that might be true. My mind churns ceaselessly: imagining, worrying, planning, remembering, designing…in short, I never look relaxed or effortless.

I’ve been thinking about how so much of the internet makes everything seem so effortless. Things like: Oh, I just decoupaged this twenty-foot tall wardrobe with my hand-printed wallpaper in a couple of hours. Or: Do you like my lustrous, frizz-less hair and casually tossed-on outfit that looks like a spread from Elle Magazine? I woke up like this. It’s not just that everything looks perfect, but the subtext is that it’s also easy.

I know I’ve mentioned similar thoughts before, but I’ve been wondering if this emphasis on easy peasy perfection is especially problematic for the younger generation, namely my own child. She looks at me as though I’m a fascinating alien when I mention researching for reports in libraries when I was little; at the age of almost 8, she knows full well how to Google. Don’t get me wrong — I love technology and all it can do when done right. But in this instant gratification society we live in, effortful is uncool, undesirable. Expectations of creating your own start-up and becoming a trillionaire before you’re 21 seem to be on the rise these days. While partying it up. I’ve read how “millenials” are getting a lot of flak for the seemingly entitled mentality they’ve formed, but what of the even younger generation? I can’t remember where I heard/read it, but when children were recently surveyed with the question, “what do you want to be when you grow up?”, a startling number said, “Famous.” Maybe it’s not directly correlated to effortlessness, but I find this disconcerting.

I guess it’s not a new concept, this whole don’t-let-them-see-you-sweat notion  — who wants to be associated with the image of a schvitzing, grunting, unglamorous worker bee? Or worker pig might be a more appropriate visual, no offense to the porky. I’m definitely a worker sow, I think.

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Anyway. I have more thought on this, but I’m roaming around all over the place with this post, and it’s time to focus my Type A minus personality and finish scheduling our summer to death.

Instagram + Green-Eyed Monster

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Instagram! Are you in on the action? I just started (@sanaeishida) but I don’t know what I’m doing at all. I couldn’t load it on my iphone for some reason, so it’s on my ipad, which makes picture-taking a rather awkward ordeal. I took a profile pix of myself when I was trying to do something else, and “liked” one of my own photos by mistake. And what’s a private user? I’m basically a mess.

I tentatively selected a few folks to follow and then had to stop and ask myself why I wanted to plunge myself in what seems like another time-robber. I love Pinterest for the visual inspiration that floods me, but I often have to step away from all the prettiness to dial down the expectations of how my own life should look. I’m digging the idea of capturing photo-based moments easily in a communal way. But I think what could make Instagram dangerous — much like any social media — is the feelings of inadequacy it can generate, more so than blogs or Pinterest because IG posts are supposedly instantaneous, real-time depictions of one’s day-to-day. It’s easy to forget that it’s another way of curating our lives for an audience. For example, I started following Alice Gao, the it girl photographer with talent oozing out of her pores. And then immediately, my little sewing-drawing-blogging-writing existence paled in comparison to the beautifully composed shots of her jet-setting, glamorous life. And is it my imagination, or are some of the photos from DSLR cameras? They look too perfect.

On the flip side, I’m also fabulously inspired – the woman creates art with photography whether it’s with a mobile device or fancy camera, there’s no question. It totally makes me want to up my photography game. That initial feeling of “why is my life fuddy duddy and why do my ipad images suck!!??” made me ponder the whole notion of jealousy.

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Have you ever wondered why jealousy and envy are associated with the color green? Some posit that Shakespeare coined the association through The Merchant of Venice and Othello, others cite Greek origins of the feelings inducing bile, hence the hue. To break up the text because I’m blathering on and on yet again, I went around the house taking photos of green and green-ish household objects…

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Lately, K has started to remark, “I feel jealous!” about certain things. When we go buy a gift for her friend’s birthday, for instance, or if I pay more attention to someone else. It’s actually one of the reasons I wrote my “enough” post, but the green-eyed monster is a big subject. It all falls under the same general topic I’m aware, but there’s something particularly taboo about jealousy, don’t you think? In many ways, I find it so refreshing that K openly declares her feelings because we all feel it.

Okay, so technically, coveting a friend’s birthday present would fall more into the envy arena, where as jealousy is often defined as a fear of having something we value taken away (e.g. a romantic partner or a parent’s attention). It could also be the fear of being replaced, as in “she’s a much better version of me and people will like her more”. Be it envy or jealousy, it’s all coming from a place of lack.

I remember when I was about six-years-old, I used to draw princesses all the time. It was an obsession. Crowns, gowns, sparkles and more. It was the only thing I could draw well, which is why I did it over and over and over. And I had this friend (also age six), who one day decided she wanted to draw princesses too. Swiftly, she wielded her pencil and produced a princess remarkably similar to mine, and I was mortified. Princesses were my thing.  How dare she draw one so well without any practice (at least I didn’t think she had practiced)? I worked so so hard on my princesses. My six-year-old self couldn’t have possibly articulated the feelings in any mature way, so I refused to speak to her for days. Jealousy. I was threatened by her natural talent, annoyed that I wasn’t special, worried that I could be easily replaced should there be a need for sparkly princess illustrations.

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On the envy side, I distinctly recall a period from about 2007 to 2008 when it seemed like everyone I knew was buying a house. We, on the other hand, were bopping from one apartment to another, each one more dismal than the one before, and florescent green coursed through my blood. I pestered M about buying a house because we could have certainly scrounged up enough for a down payment, and thank goodness for his financial savvy because he had predicted the bubble and recession eons before (I call him “Muffy” – a play on my nickname for Warren Buffet: “Buffy”). I was thoroughly operating from that thing people call the “scarcity mentality”. I would troll real estate listings, drooling over turn-of-the-century Craftsman homes completely updated with charming details intact, and bemoan how awful our apartment was. M turned a deaf ear to me.

So a couple of interesting things happened in relation to those two tales. Once I got over princess-gate, I realized I needed to expand my artistic repertoire. I started to practice drawing animals (wearing princess gowns, but still). I practiced sketching anything and everything that caught my eye. I also thought about what else I could be good at despite my tender six years. I explored, and it was fun. It turned out that I was good at many things, like telling stories and mopping and creating pretend make-up from plants.

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In 2010, we found our current house through a series of mishaps, which I might tell you about one day, but it was a pretty depressing time and it’s not very interesting. Our house is a rental, but it’s just right for us. Sure, it could be spiffied up a bit as I’ve mentioned, but we love living here. The envious feeling? Poof. Completely gone.

It’s not breaking news that the envy and jealousy we feel has everything to do with what we perceive to be missing in ourselves. There was plenty of room for multiple princess-drawers in our neighborhood when I was six; what I intrinsically felt was that without that particular skill — if anyone could do it — I wasn’t unique enough. Because deep down, I was and am afraid that I am unremarkable and forgettable. I know that’s not true and it’s not true for anyone, but believing in oneself has got to be the hardest human task out there.

As for the house-envy, it was never about owning a house or keeping up with friends (at least not much). It was about feeling settled and free and part of a community. In our prior residences there was an inherent sense of impermanence and restrictiveness, so I was untethered and stifled, if you will. K’s cries would bother neighbors and I tiptoed around, feelings of resentment building. We still rent, yes, but we’ve landed on a spectacularly unusual situation in a great area – here we feel settled and free and part of a community.

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Essentially, I’d love to be like K — so open and accepting of her feelings. “I feel jealous,” she says, in the same breath as, “I feel hungry” and then she just moves on. Jealousy and envy frequently invade my emotions and my reactions to them are more complex. Over the years — through hits and misses — I’ve been working on trying to identify what’s missing in me when the feelings take over. What is it about the other person that I want? What’s the need in me that is coming up empty? It’s tough work because sometimes the answer isn’t straightforward, and it’s so very unpleasant to feel the emotions, but it can be a propeller of positive actions too. Perhaps with instagram the green-eyed monster will take up semi-permanent residence, but I’m already seeing the potential for magnificent inspiration. I’m excited by the prospect of using technology and connectivity to share my own unique perspective .

Jealousy and envy — they are teachers that ask the important questions: What do you really want to pursue? Who do you truly want to be? What do you need to do to make your life better? And perhaps the most important questions is, What can you be grateful for?

And it’s my job to answer them.

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Giving Back

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My first job out of graduate school landed me in jail. The brisk and humiliating body search. The clang of the barred door. “What have I done?” I thought, numb and disoriented.

I’d committed no crime, at least none that I knew of, and certainly none that would put me in the slammer. Somehow, though, at age 27, face covered with adult-onset acne, I stood toe-to-toe with glaring, orange-clad inmates.

What I had done was find employment with an arts non-profit in the Bay Area. I’d been accepted into Peace Corps, but at the same time, I got a job offer as a director of operations for a theater company that had made a name for itself with innovative collaborations involving the San Francisco County Jail and at-risk youth, and I just couldn’t pass up the offer. The pay was the pits, the benefits laughable. But I’ve always been a dreamer and overly idealistic, and I convinced myself that I could help more in my own country than in Central Asia through the Peace Corps. And truth be told, living in San Francisco was on my bucket list, and I rationalized that I could go dig ditches in third world countries when I retired.

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In retrospect, it was probably the most character-building experience I’ve ever had. Its uniqueness came in multitudes. The non-profit organization was housed in the Center for African and African American Art and Culture (CAAAC as it was known back then, but they’ve since modified their name slightly). The center was in a part of town where people instructed me to never walk alone at night. I was one of three non-black people in the entire building. Clearly, my new employer was hell-bent on diversity, as his other employee was also not of African descent (a Caucasian Yale grad with an amazing knack for grant-writing. A super nice guy, by the way). The vibrant environment resonated with music (including a lot of rap) and dancing and glorious art.

It was also the only workplace in which my boss would show up in a zoot suit. He favored metallic blues and purples, though my personal favorite was the gold one. He wore many hats — sometimes literally — as executive director, theater company head and father figure to masses of displaced children, but most notably, he was a saxophonist and tap dancer. And he performed both simultaneously. In contrast to his wild outfits, he was a reticent and quiet man, pragmatic and kind.

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I actually had two bosses, and the other one was a firecracker who kept me on my toes. She invariably burst into rooms, her red hair glowing, commanding attention with her gravelly voice and dramatic turn of phrases. A stage actress by training, she was fierce and bold and inspiring – a lioness. Legions of young actresses sought her out to train under her. Her life mission was to work directly with female inmates, extracting and crafting their stories, then teaching the women how to perform these stories and to heal themselves.

That in and of itself was pioneering, but what raised the stakes was that the performances were held outside of the prison cells at a public venue. The shows starred the incarcerated women themselves, and some of these women had committed murder. Not a group to be messed with. A large part of my role was to coordinate all aspects of this public performance from booking the venue, working with the Sheriff’s department to ensure maximum security, dealing with city ordinances and endless bureaucratic red tape, and interfacing with the women in the jails.

High stress. Funnily enough, one of the hardest tasks for me was to organize the post-performance gala. We had no budget so this required soliciting for pro-bono help and free food. Basically, I had to beg. I begged one of the moms of the afterschool program I oversaw to cater the event. She looked at me dubiously and asked, “Did you say 200 people? How you gonna pull this off with $100?” Somehow I convinced her, and I went around imploring restaurants, shops and bakeries to donate food. I beseeched stationery stores, florists and party shops to lend us decorations and platters and champagne flutes. My love of Trader Joe’s started then because they provided almost all of the ingredients and beverages for the gala, gratis. I am a woman filled with pride and begging is antithetical to my nature.

In the end, the performance culminated in success. Many tears were shed, excellent reviews written up, and all the rest. But the gala was my pride and joy, a thing of pure beauty. I remember taking all the foodstuffs to the caterer the day before the event. “Girl,” she said with a look of wonder, “You NICE, but you ain’t a pushover.” Very few words have made me as happy as those. I hold them dear, as a personal motto. The caterer did a phenomenal job with all the TJ supplies, whipping up mini puff pastries, pint-sized crab cakes, crudites, dips and an enormous array of mouth-watering food. She even made a gorgeous cake and the whole set up was fit for an exquisitely tasteful wedding.

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I wish I could say I had a thriving career as an arts administrator, but I didn’t stay at the organization very long — I lasted about a year. Mostly it was because my heart couldn’t take it, and I was burnt out. I was too young, too naive, too disappointed by the injustice. Yes, the organization and programs helped many people, but it was such a small percentage compared to the constant recidivism, of the endless revolving door of crime, despair, abuse. Mothers addicted to crack would stumble into my office to randomly drop off young malnourished children, barely stringing together a coherent sentence. It broke me seeing and taking care of those kids. I lingered many, many extra hours in the office for them.

I also don’t think I was whole enough myself to withstand the sorrow and distress that my job entailed. At the same time, I was afraid that I would become desensitized, which was something of a commonality in that line of work. Even after I quit, I continued to volunteer for literacy groups and assisted homeless shelters and substance abuse programs, but I knew that these were under the umbrella of “safe” volunteerism, the kind that kept me at arm’s length, away from direct involvement and emotional commingling. I could put in my couple of hours, paint a wall for habitat or tutor a kid once in a blue moon and call it good. The sort of charity work I observed the well-heeled doing when I lived in Los Angeles: the auctions held at four-star hotels, the sunny afternoons spent picking up a few pieces of litter while wearing designer gloves. I’m not saying it’s wrong and I’m not trying to judge, because I think any form of a helping hand is admirable and necessary. In fact, growing up with immigrant parents, my family had very little money and though I didn’t know it at the time, I was a beneficiary of those well-heeled folks on many occasions. And I am grateful.

I guess I just felt like I wasn’t doing enough to be of service after I left the non-profit. Defeated that I couldn’t handle the hard stuff. I’ve been thinking about those days at the theater company a lot lately; I faced adversity and joy and hope and hopelessness and foibles and strengths. Oftentimes all at once. I want to give back again — the dreamer and overly idealistic self is still there and I’ve noticed the void of service acutely these last few years. Sure, I’m trying to juggle family and regaining my health and cobbling together some semblance of work, but I sense that I’m presenting this weird life in which all I do is sew pretty clothes and draw cute pictures and compose dorky haikus and talk endlessly about myself. Can I contribute something worthwhile and do those things? Well, wouldn’t that be grand? I’m not sure how to make it happen yet, but the idea has lodged into my thoughts…

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P.S. If you’re curious about the organization I worked for, it’s still around! Idris and Rhodessa are amazing!