A weight upon my heart
I've been feeling it again lately, the tightness in my chest, the restlessness in my mind that keeps me up at night and idle in the day. It's a familiar feeling, coming in waves and following a cycle, reminiscent of my days in W. Though the reasons and challenges differ this time, the struggle in my head and the questions on my mind remain the same. Can I do this? Am I going to be okay? The sense of dread hits the hardest on Sunday afternoons when Monday announces its unwelcome arrival, and I have to brace myself for a night of confronting the work that I have put off all weekend long. Work feels hard, and though I've turned it over in my mind, I can't place the real reason why.
Are the tasks difficult because the work is new and unfamiliar to me? Or is it because I care too much about doing a good job that it's taking me that much longer to get things done? Or is it just me? Why do I have the nagging sense that planning and organising is just more tedious and effortful for me than it is for someone else? Why does it feel discouragingly likely that even if I do get accustomed to this work that it would still not come easy?
For a long time, I've often felt that life for me was always one size too large. Excelling academically in kindergarten and primary school were the exceptions, and my academic success and correspondingly, what feels like my life success seem to have gone downhill since. My motivation in secondary school was figuratively and literally subjective, and my grades swung between fairly decent and terribly awful depending on who/what could sustain my interest and attention at the time. In polytechnic, I relied on my younger sister (who innocently volunteered her help when I asked)1 to complete my school assignments whenever they got tedious and boring. It's embarrassing to admit, but she helped me—a lot. I had the ideas and the vision, but I often faltered when it came to the grind. Then in my final year, I almost quit school at the half-year mark, before I was convinced to take a break before repeating a semester and redoing my final year project.
Before W, I had already found it increasingly hard to cope with the demands of work especially after marriage and motherhood. Yet my break from work was not without its set of difficulties. My conclusion then was that perhaps I needed work for the structure it could provide. Then now that I'm back at work again—with hours that are presently shorter than my previous job and at a location that's a literal stone's throw away from home—yet I'm finding again, that life is equally hard. And the only logical and demoralising conclusion I can draw is that, it's just me.
I think of how my time living abroad turned out to be quite different from that of a close friend. She had returned home just before I left for W and had spoke of her experiences so positively. “You'll be fine once you settle down into a routine,” she had assured me, words I had believed at that moment, not knowing that I would struggle so much with the things that came easy for her. What I didn't know then was that walking down a supermarket aisle and throwing groceries into my cart could make me anxious, that cutting up ingredients and juggling multiple pots and pans on a stove in the mess of a kitchen would be so overwhelming, and that the days of caring for my three-year-old would often feel so long and monotonous.
I feel like my adult life can be summed up in these two words—showing up. I show up because I am an adult, I have responsibilities, and that's just what I have to do. I hide my anxiety under a smile, show my one-dimensional work self up at work and carry out the role and responsibilities I am paid to do. I show up to respond to my son's never-ending stream of chatter, to care for all his physical and emotional needs, and to sometimes wipe his butt for the third time in the day, again and again and again.
Sometimes I really wish that I could just disappear for a little while (with no repercussions), to go where I want and to do what I feel, to be free of the need to show up for someone else. Is it just me? Have I lost my passion? (I think I have. I remember a time in my youth where life looked and felt different.) Is there an actual person who enjoys their work? Does the person who looks forward to each work day actually exist? Why do I have to work so hard at the expense of other areas in my life? Why does work have to be so soul sucking?
I wonder if my challenges are personal and that I am weak. How did Popo find the strength and energy to birth and raise thirteen children or cook three meals daily to feed a family of fifteen? How was she able to bear with the emotional burden of a husband who strayed, a woman who took her place and children who wanted money more than they loved her? Where did her tenacity stem from, and how did she build that resilience?
I keep going back to this word that is a common descriptor of this condition that I am still finding hard to come to terms with. It's a word that speaks and a word that cuts. Scattered. I feel scattered in the countless projects that I have started but cannot finish, in the million and one ideas that I've dreamed of but could never put into action. Scattered across all the persons that I could have been and the possible lives I could have had, if only I had not given up, if only I were more persistent.
What could my life look like without all this friction? And yet, if not for this friction, what would I have worth writing, if anything at all?
My sister was generally willing to help me out because she found my design coursework interesting. I was probably also pushy and bossy and she, too nice to say no. Although it did all turn out to her benefit, since she's the one actually doing this as a job now.↩