Self sabotage

I create massive amounts of stress for myself. There are a number of people who would tell you I’m quite high-strung, and tend toward the melodramatic. I used to argue – spent an evening trying to make a guy miserable in grad school that dared tell me I was a bit high maintenance. I think I proved his point, and though we laughed about it later – kissing and making up quite nicely – it remains an important realization for me. He helped me know myself better, and I ended up retreating from eyes that saw too much and lips that weren’t afraid to confront me with some basic truths about my character.

I don’t cope with personal chaos well at all. I have very few friends at any given time – dedicating vast amounts of time and attention to those I hold close, and discarding other people so as not to drain my internal resources. Right now there’s nobody. I keep in touch with select people from my past – 2 women from undergrad, 2 from grad school – and have a cast of characters who serve as acquaintances. Some charming and endearing, others confusing me to the point of infuriation. For the most part, I strive to create a calm environment on a personal level.

I have one caveat to that though. I mentioned earlier that I’m fond of cleaning – fluffing my little nest and sighing contentedly when I look over my tiny, tidy kingdom. But I allow it to reach the cusp of grossness before I clean. It’s not filthy…but it’s close.

Rather than doing dishes each night, I rinse them and leave them in piles. My dishwasher is somewhat less than effective, so I do them by hand. But it seems a waste of time to fill the sink each evening to do a plate and some silverware. I’d rather maximize efficiency by cleaning when I really need to. Then I can see the contrast – the true effects of the time I spent. Furniture seems to gleam more brightly after removing a decent layer of dust, the carpet looks fluffy and soft after being vacuumed when it truly needs it. I like having to work – creating a mess through the week that I can anticipate cleaning over the weekend – a bit of a challenge if you will.

I was always good at school – can honestly never remember struggling at all until my grad career. I didn’t have exam anxiety, would give public presentations with only a slightly fluttery stomach. Gym caused me the most trouble – I would wring my hands waiting my turn in kick ball, feel sick with dread on days we had to play softball with the boys. When looking back at a graph of stress levels over my high school career, the peaks would belong to the hours spent in sweats and a brightly colored shirt, emblazoned with the school logo and smelling of locker room, regardless of how often it was washed. The tests, the college applications, extra-cirriculars - not that interesting. Give me something athletic or social, and I'll freak out. So I don't allow those types of events to happen anymore.

Apart from physical education, the most difficult moments were ones I created for myself. I would stay home sick, sometimes relatively often. I started early on, realizing in second grade, I think, that you didn’t have to come to school every day. That if I could figure out how to trick Mom, there was a day of books and TV as a reward.

I realized quickly thereafter that someone would often bring work home for me. I could get through the material in less than an hour. Dad taught me to multiply two digit numbers in third grade – sitting at the table and practicing problems after I stayed home with a pseudo-cold. I was bored for weeks afterward, sitting through classes where we would continually face concepts I’d mastered in an evening. It doesn’t make sense, I thought irritably (for I was annoying arrogant then). I could do this so much faster on my own! The only problem with staying home was the internal drama it created. Did I miss something important? Would I be able to catch up? Were my friends talking about me in my absence?

I continued the trend throughout undergrad – taking days off and making up for it later. I can remember 2 classes – one undergrad, the other grad that I attended mainly to take exams. Carefully checking the syllabus to make sure attendance wasn’t required, I enjoyed the rush of challenging myself to pick up the necessary facts and concepts without assistance. A slightly lower grade was well worth the extra time gained from not attending lectures and study groups. I adored it – the freedom of assessing the quality of instruction and determining that I could get it on my own much faster. I got As in both courses, by the way. Unfair, perhaps, but it only reinforced what I’d figured out. I could pull this off – and there was the added uncertainty that spiced things up. Was I missing something critical? What if exams weren’t based on reading and homework and were instead covering only material discussed in class? The relief that came with each successful exam was intense, and I was often left giddy that I had stolen time away from the class, yet was still rewarded with knowledge.

Part of my hesitance to accept one of the industry jobs I was offered was the terror I feel at entering a world outside academia. One where you’re expected to be physically present for 10 hours a day. I don’t do that. I have weeks where I practically live at the office – where I’m incredibly grateful that I have a house with a dog door so Chienne doesn’t suffer without me. There are others time I barely leave the couch – having food delivered, reading romance novels, watching TV, going through my bookmarks 10 times a day to see if anyone has posted recently (this was pre-bloglines – the site that changed my life. Now I just refresh my feeds continuously, huffing with indignation when there's nothing new).

The thing is, working from home (even “working” from home) doesn’t bother people in this environment. There seems to be an understanding of the cycles of productivity. When it’s low tide, you run along the packed sand – sprinting through ideas, putting projects together, building collaborations like elaborate sand castles, marveling at all the possibilities around you. Picking up knowledge like pretty shells, putting them aside for closer consideration later.

But at high tide? All your options are covered in gallons of water. I swim, practicing flips underwater, splashing about, but my progress is slow and I’m often distracted by how the light hits the waves, bouncing to keep my head above water but not moving much at all. And sometimes, when the tide recedes, I watch the others head toward the shore, picking up shells and building their castles, while I'm loathe to leave the buoyant comfort of the water, floating gently on the surface, eyes closed to the warmth of the sun.

I was told many times I needed a month to study for my qualifying exams. I wasted the first 2 weeks – taking advantage of any opportunity to not study, building stress until it reached unbearable levels. Taking out binders to relieve it, only to glance through notes and toss them away, trying to distance myself from the material. I noted the stories of other students, some of whom had been studying diligently for months. I let the pressure grow suffocating – unable to sleep for the intensity of the tension. But still I waited. Then I studied constantly for 2 weeks, determined to cram the information in some corner of my brain.

I’d done this countless times before. Procrastinating on studying was my forte – I’d prepare papers and assignments weeks in advance, showing off with my organization and preparedness. But studying is such a weird process – difficult to know when you’re done, when you know enough. So I put it off, relatively certain that I can remember enough of what I’ve heard and read that I’ll be able to put together some sort of answer to a question. Pushing my luck to add some uncertainty to an otherwise predictable process.

The qualifier was different though. I had decided that I’d leave grad school if I didn’t pass it. I wasn’t happy there – had gained weight, lost track of my spiritual life – was, in fact, bitterly angry at God for putting me in a situation where I was quite miserable. I was not performing particularly well, unused to feeling mediocre when it came to academic matters. With no idea of where I was going after my graduate program, I willing to try to find my way without an advanced degree if this test didn’t go well.

It went fine, and I took that as an answered prayer that God would stick with me if I continued on my little path. I guess this blog is a way of chancing my current career. One of the things I admire most about some bloggers who share pieces of their professional lives is the way they tend to face the future – the possibility of being found out that increases exponentially with their popularity – with eyes open and heads up. Opinionistas is taking names of people who do that.

I don’t, though at times I wish I did. I have posts, some funny, others rants of overreaction to some irritating event, but I doubt they’ll ever be published. I’ll put information out here – tell stories, walk a line between what I’m free to say and what I should keep to myself, but I won’t cross it. At least not at this point. My ability to sabotage something I’ve worked toward isn’t that refined quite yet. It has to be subtler – I’d have to cross a line unknowingly, perhaps in a fit of rage or inconsolable grief. Then the right people would have to find it, publicize it, and I would go with the flow. The idea of not knowing how my employers would react, how the scientific community would respond, if anyone would have a problem with another example of the free exchange of information.

But that’s a fantasy, one that I’m not sure I’d particularly enjoy. It certainly would liven things up, making my life significantly more interesting and exciting than it currently is. I could put something damaging out here – poke fun at the many characters who inhabit my corner of the world, hurl insults at people who take advantage of a system that should work to make the world better, and mourn the fact that I fear some patients might suffer more than necessary while I sit in some narcissistic haze, plotting how I’m going to make life a bit harder for myself since I have no real problems of which to speak.

I wish there was some reasonable ending to this post. Something that indicated I was growing on some profound level and easing up on these ridiculous exercises. But I'm not, continuing to frolic in the ocean, frowning over the people working so diligently and moving so quickly on the beach, wondering at my ability to catch them, even if I spend just a few more days communing with the fish. So I sit and write this post, letting the time when I should have been asleep drift by, knowing I'll be tired for my morning meeting, thinking of how I should have done more than glance at those papers I brought home this weekend...