…just made it worse.
I was racing against time. I had an hour to apply for a TED fellowship, and needed to enter the URL for this blog into the application form. And could I do it? No, a back slash was missing, or I had typed too many “p’s” or a “www” was required. I kept diminishing the form, going to the blog, and trying to figure it out. I finally got it—just do a copy / paste of the damn address bar.
OK—did that, went to maximize the application form, and discovered…
…I had hit the tiny red “x” button, not the tiny yellow diminishing button.
It’s all different on the Mac, you see.
And all my work was gone….
I erupted in fury, raging into the kitchen. I was hungry, my jaw hurt, I had to teach in 20 minutes. I broke down and started crying for…
…my old life at Wal-Mart.
Which is paradoxical, because in some ways I can’t believe I ever did that job. It’s another lifetime ago. ‘Wow, that was the weirdest gig I’ve ever done,’ I often think.
But there I was, sobbing for a job gone away. And I realized….
…it’s mourning.
And always, you think you’re done with it. ‘Got that squared away,’ you think, and then find yourself in tears a moment later, when you flip on the radio and get “Turn, Turn, Turn.” (“To every thing there is a season, a time to laugh, a time to cry….”)
The wise Harry likens it to peeling an onion. You do layer after layer. The onion gets smaller and smaller. But there’s always another layer.
And I had lost 200 friends. Or were they? Weren’t they just students, co-workers, people I knew and liked?
Something in me says no. I sat with these people for hours in my room, hearing their stories, laughing, condoling, crying. I think now of a presentation a student gave, ending with the ultrasound film of the baby she was carrying. You could see the heart beat. Everyone in the room was in tears.
I think of the very tough speech I gave my students after Franny died. A student had just dumped a load of very negative energy because her boss needed a report, thus interrupting her work.
“You know what? This is not a problem. This is a stupid minor issue. This is an annoyance. I’ve just spent three weeks helping my mother die. That’s a problem. That’s something that took more from me than virtually anything I’ve done. I’ll carry that to my grave. So no, you don’t have stress. And don’t tell yourself that this is a problem. You have a job and you’re healthy and your kids are OK and guess what? Don’t bring this attitude into my classroom.”
The students were shocked.
Right—so shouldn’t I take my own advice?
There’s a difference, I think. I ate something. I took a deep breath. I went and taught my student, and it was a good class. And then another student—also a good class. Then I got a break—two cancellations. I came home at 4, not six. Took another deep breath, went to the computer and re-did the form.
And the Mac remembered my copy. Worked like a charm. I hit “submit” and got a confirmation email in seconds.
It’s fair, I think, to wail. It’s stupid not to. I had been, being the good soldier—chin up, shoulders back. I had been strict with myself—to-do lists, no veg’ing out, no naps or reading or doing Sudoku for hours at a time.
I had imposed a structure, and that was good.
And then I thought—why? What difference does it make? Why shouldn’t I play Sudoku all day? Isn’t this all so artificial, this “structure” of mine?
Yeah, it is.
But it’s also necessary. Just as it’s necessary to wail, to sob, to cry for a life now gone, and for 200 people who vanished in 20 minutes. We don’t have a word for it—this feeling. It wasn’t self-pity, but self sorrow.
And justly so….
