Commuting

Sometimes when I am commuting to and from work, I feel a sudden, overwhelming saddness that permeates the various filters I put between myself and the thought of what I am doing and where I am going; the book I’m invariably reading, the music that covers the short distance from my earphones to my inner ear, and the stories I make up about my fellow subeterranean travelers. Why sadness? I don’t know, or at least I tell myself I don’t know. Emerging from the metro-tube this morning, back into the cold daylight, I found myself thinking about my ancestors, who were slaves and later sharecroppers, who rose every morning and traveled to work they probably neither wanted to do or would have chosen for themselves, but were compelled to do. It seems ludicrous to compare their situation to mine. After all, I’m free to come and go as I please, right? And I’m no one’s property. But am I doing what I want to do? Am I doing what I choose to do? Or am I doing what I have to do?

There are a few reasons why these thoughts were roiling around in my mind as I sat speeding beneath the earth, towards my desk and my tasks for the day. My commute felt like something of a metaphore. As I was commuting from home to work — from one role to another — I also felt, and still feel, as though I’m in commute from one life, one identity to another. The difference in the latter commute is that my destination, and even the route that will take me to it, is unclear. As though I’m traveling through fog and haze, not knowing how or where I’m going, carried silently along by time. This morning, during the more defined commute, two things were on my mind.

First, in my recent sessions with my coach, we’ve been discussing how the improvement in managing my ADD symptoms has moved me on to another journey, to borrow a phrase from Sari Solden, author of Journeys Through ADDulthood. I’m in the process of re-reading that book, looking at it in terms of where I am right now and what I need right now to take the next step forward, whatever that is. Solden writes about a post-diagnosis phase, after the ADD symptoms are under control, in which the adult faces the task of forging a new identity, based on the new picture of the self that develops post diagnosis. I know fairly well that this is where I am right now. So, what’s been on my mind lately are questions like “Who am I?” and “What do I want to do?”

Second, yesterday at work, I talked with a woman who — at the age of 45 — is applying to law school, and working on her application essay. That she was pursuing a new career was inspiring enough, and proof to me — having just turned 35 — that it’s not too late for me to decide what I want to be when I grow up. She also said something that stuck with me, “I don’t just want a job, I want a vocation.”

It echoed what’s been going on in my head for the last few months, that is just beginning to crystalize for me. Do I have a just have a job, or do I have a vocation? Am I doing what I want to do, or am I doing what I have to do, in order to make a living? In her book, Solden writes about how ADD adults often end up just doing what they can to make a living, ending up in positions that focus on their difficulties (organization, memorization, efficiency, etc.) because those are the things deemed important in the working world and in our society. In my own case, after getting out of college by the skin of my teeth, the immediate necessity was to do something that would earn me a living, because that’s what I was “supposed” to do. So I went from job to job, just trying to survive. If I had any old dreams of what I wanted to do or become, they got set aside in favor of making it in the “real world.” (My dreams, of which I’ll say more later, were never money-makers or all that “realistic.”) All the while, I’ve had this nagging feeling that there’s something I’m supposed to be doing, or that I’m supposed to have accomplished, that I’ve missed somehow. Last night, discussing this with my partner, I finally said “I just have a job. Not a career or a vocation.”

But what would I do? Law school? Culinary school? Social work? All of them are things that I’ve been interested in. I even looked into a few, and in one case applied to a school and got accepted, only to decide it wasn’t the course I wanted to take. (Fear of failure factored in, too.) I remember when I was growing up, there was a turning point at which my parents, I’m sure they thought for my own good, tried to get me to “see reality” and temper my dreams. What was important was that I go to college and get a degree that would get me a job. (My dad thought engineering would be a good major for me, nevermind that I was never very good at math or science, and never cared much for either subject. “If you make money at it, you’ll like it,” was the answer I got. Nevermind that, as I probably wouldn’t have been a good or very happy engineer, I probably wouldn’t have made much money at it.) My dreams could wait for my “spare time” because they weren’t “reality.” “Reality” is somethign I was never good at. But then I grew up always seeming to want and to dream the “wrong” things.

This morning, as I was hurtling beneath the city on my way to work, I was reading Derrick Jensen’s A Language Older Than Time, in which he writes of “wage slaves” and how it’s often difficult to extract oneself from the “wage economy” to find other avenues of self-support, to follow a calling or a dream. Just before I got off the train, I read:

The people in my classes, including me, did not need to be controlled, managed, nor even taught. What we needed was to be encouraged, accepted, and loved just for who we were. We needed not to be governed by a set of rules that would tell us what we needed to express, but to be given tiem in a supportive space to explore who we were and what we wanted, with the assistance of others who had our best interests at heart. I believe that is true … for all of us … All we want, … is to be loved, to be accepted, cherished, and celebrated simply for being who we are. Is that so very difficult?

And I knew what it was I’d been missing, until just a few years ago, and what I have now with my partner and son.. And, probably, without it, I might not have gotten where I am right now without it.
As I emerged into the morning, after just reading the passage above, I somehow managed to find a quite place within myself amidst the rush of people on their way to their own desks, their own lives (and not the stories I created about them in my head), and I felt myself ask a question. I’m not sure who I was asking. Maybe some part of myself; maybe the kid who was always told he wanted the wrong things. But the question was simply “What do you want?” It was asked with patience, with a kind of acceptance I hadn’t felt before, even from myself. And it didn’t even require an answer. But the answer came effortlessly, and honestly, “I want to sing. I want to write. I want to perform, and to create.”

So, now I’m taking a step. I’ve already taken a few. This blog was one, to get me writing again. Now I’m taking another. I’m giving something back to that kid, and to myself; a piece of a dream, a taste of a desire that’s been long buried. Tomorrow, I’m registering for the “Beginning Scene Study” class offered locally by the Theatre Lab. It’s been a while since I’ve performed, or even stretched my acting muscles, but it’s something I used to do and still want to do. I’ll keep my day job, and I may never make a living acting (or singing, or writing), but I’m reclaiming a part of myself, and a part of a dream that used to be an important part of who I was … and who I am. And it feels good.