Turn and Face the Strange

I know I’ve been gone for a month and a half. Part of me would remember this blog and how dedicated I feel to it and to my writing practice, but then feel ashamed by my lack of posts, even in the form of a short update. Shame and guilt are what stop so many worthy pursuits, and they not only pump the brakes on any progress we could make, but effectively take our vehicle away. I’m making more of a concerted effort every day to not let shame and guilt tell me I’m not good enough or that if I really cared, I would have done more by this point. For anyone who needs to hear that, I hope you really hear it, too! 

I’ve had a lot of change in my life since my last post, and there will be even more change in my life over the course of the rest of 2024. 

In my last post, I talked about accountability goals that my then-therapist had helped me institute and start incorporating into my life. It’s another thing I haven’t done perfectly, but I try to gently bring myself back to in those moments where I recognize what’s going on. I choose to take Frederich Nietzche’s knowledge on the matter: “What do you regard as most humane? To spare someone shame.” I plan to be humane, compassionate, sympathetic to everyone by first sparing myself, then others, from shame. 

Now, for the changes. I chose the title of this post because I love the song “Changes” by David Bowie. Normally, I would have quoted the refrain “Ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-changes” because it’s just fun. But I feel like the lyric “turn and face the strange” is an invitation to the unknown, which is usually scary to some degree in nearly any new situation. It might be scary to look at something strange, unusual, different for the first time, but Bowie invites the listener to look it in the face. That’s what I plan to do. 

First, I got hired at another part-time job! I’m working in a university library, where I help students in person, and via chat, email, Zoom, and phone with their research needs. This is exactly the area of library work I’ve been hoping to be in for some time and it feels great to reach this point. 

Next, I decided to enroll in a yoga teacher training program. I’m looking forward to gaining a deeper appreciation for the art of yoga, learning to embrace my own body where it is through the lifestyle and practice of yoga and help others be able to do the same. Getting into a regular yoga practice in preparation has been a great way to engage my body and build strength in a comfortable way that I really feel like I can own. 

Last, I was accepted into a graduate degree program where I’ll be learning how to preserve and archive film materials. It is a competitive program at a well-known school and I honestly turned in the application fully believing that I didn’t have a great chance of getting in. I also had convinced myself that it was going to be too big of a time and money commitment to undertake. However, when I got the acceptance letter, I felt pride, excitement, and reinvigoration. It might be a big time and money commitment, but that shouldn’t keep me from pursuing something I’m really looking forward to. A former supervisor of mine is about to move to Dublin, Ireland to pursue a PhD at Trinity University and he recently told me he had had similar reservations about his Master’s degrees and the program he is about to start. However, he reminded me that time is fungible, that it can be reprioritized later, and that it is still finite. I think we’re both on our way to making the most of our time, pursuing projects that mean a lot to us and that make sense for us to do at this point in our lives. I don’t want to grow old wondering what would have happened if I had done yoga teacher training, if I had pursued this second Master’s degree. I want to have cherished memories of that time to share with others. 

Thank you for making it this far. I can’t wait to continue giving updates on these strange changes and to continue sharing my stories with others.