As a kid my mom always told me that I seemed to like doing or saying things just for their “shock value.” I didn’t really understand what that meant entirely, but I recall never being bugged by it. Now that I’m old enough to understand what she meant, I feel like I didn’t do it for shock purposes, but I did (do!) it order to garner the most extreme reaction from people: positive or negative (often somewhere in between).
I don’t want lukewarm reactions in life; from myself, my kids, from my future partner (!), friends, students, co-workers, family, strangers, etc. I want people to instinctively react based on their most immediate emotions without having to worry about how it will come across, or whether it will offend (it is nearly impossible to offend me). Okay, so know you’re probably thinking that this type of reaction lacks depth, but it’s quite the opposite. When somebody reacts right away, it’s honest, pure, raw emotions/feelings.
That doesn’t mean I don’t like tact, and that I don’t think tact is necessary – heck yes, use tact, people! But also use heart first, then maybe tact will naturally follow suit. I tend to think that we are composed of mostly good, and that only gets all tangled up when we think too much. Just feel.
I’ve been in a slump for a couple weeks. No, since the summer, and I just realized this morning why. I’ll get to that further below, but let me explain a little about myself first.
I’ve always been told I was careless, not about peoples’ feelings, or the safety of others (not really) and things of that nature, but careless in the sense of my inability to feel regret. People talk about regreting things they’ve said, done, failed to do, or didn’t do correctly; I don’t have that. So maybe when you are a ‘regret-o-path’, you often don’t think about certain consequences of your actions and words. You are unfiltered, restless, and unpredictable (as unpredictable as you can get as a single mom working the 8-5 for her first job, and the whatever-other-hours for her second and third-ish jobs). I still don’t really think that makes me careless, but that’s what I’ve been told. I think it’s more of a restlessness within. This has always been the way I feel.
Okay, so sometime in June I was on a mountain bike adventure with a friend. Was going along, things were normal, and then suddenly I felt a sharp pain in my chest, and started having a hard time swallowing and just felt like something was off. I drank some water, finished my ride, but felt unsettled. My friend, Andrew, who I was biking with that day was concerned about my symptoms, and told me a little about his heart and what led to him having open-heart surgery. Long story still, but let me shorten: I went to the cardiologist, they ended up running a whole bunch of tests, and determined I had a congenital heart condition which they termed as one that’s related to “dropping dead” out of nowhere. I might drop dead before finishing this post, I may drop dead on the way to my triathlon in 2 weeks, or I may drop dead when I am 87 or maybe like 91. That’s just my heart. I am a very active person, so to find out that my heart wasn’t good brought me down. Way down. But I tried to play it off like it was no big deal, joked about dropping dead (hardly anybody ever laughed at those jokes – especially my mom and my fiance), but I was trying to pretend that all was good. You know, when you have a bad heart, people don’t really think about it the way they do if you have: diabetes, cancer, etc., but it’s actually the number one cause of death in people. So there’s that. I moved on, got happy again, and went about my life.
Fast forward 6 months and I’m in a slump. Way down there, not sleeping (didn’t sleep for 3 days this week at all), feeling restless again, racking my brain for reasons why. Then I realized why: I have my 6 month post-follow-up from all my heart tests, wherein we will determine the course of my heart, see if it still takes forever to recharge for the next beat (99.9% chance it will be the same or worse, since it’s congenital), and then I will be sad again. What if I seriously die soon and leave my 4- and 5-year-old kids behind? Ugh.
People make bucket list, and usually get started on them when they’re old and retired. I think I need to get started on mine, even if, and hopefully I will, I live to be 100. So that’s what I’m going to do!
I used to long for a mentor. Okay, so maybe “long” isn’t the right word, because my desire isn’t that deep, nor do I actually think that a mentor is something unattainable, which happens to be one of the main characteristics of human longing. Not always, but usually. Nonetheless, I have always wanted a mentor; specifically, somebody for my professional endeavors. I’m 6+-years into my career as an Instructional Consultant (among many other titles and jobs over the past few ‘re-orgs’), and finally have realized that I will never have somebody to support me as a professional, therefore I will go ahead and become somebody’s (hopefully many somebodies’) mentor instead. Give what I didn’t have, but probably could have benefited from. But can I give what I never had? (Hint: the answer is yes.)
Mentors are there to listen, encourage, support, counsel, motivate, and generally explain the intricacies of whatever subject they’re being mentored on. There is no outline to follow in order to be a mentor, well, there is where we work, but I’m talking about truly being able to be there for somebody as they are getting started/’re-orging’/advancing/’whatevering’. Something else of importance when you are mentoring: you are in the arena with the person, not looking on from the watchtower. I like how vulnerability researcher, Brené Brown, PhD LMSW puts it in her video Why Your Critics Aren’t the Ones Who Count: “If you’re gonna go in the arena and spend any time there whatsoever, especially if you’ve committed to creating in your life, you will get your ass kicked.” Yes, you will. You’ll then need somebody to pick you up, dust you off, and walk back into that arena with you until you can walk in there alone (which I would argue doesn’t actually need to happen either, because in reality, nobody (except hermits) is isolated from other humans, so there’s no need/reason to walk in there alone). If you don’t have a least one person who will dust you off, encourage you to keep trying/failing, and motivate you to keep doing more, than all you have are critics. Dr. Brown says, and I agree, that those people don’t deserve your attention or time. If they aren’t getting bloody with you, then they have no say in what you do.
Verona Arena (Arena di Verona) – Roman amphitheater built in the 1st century. I’m pretty sure its soil has sopped up a lot of blood. Taken from http://bit.ly/1V7yZX7 and not modified or edited.
I’m a mentor now to various people (faculty, staff, students) and entire groups (NMSU: Nursing, Business, Social Work, English) that aligns with my professional skills, as well as I teach a a college course in the evenings specifically designed to encourage, motivate, support those (bloody) students through their first year of college. I don’t know if I am a good mentor, but I follow the simple “rules” (not sure what I should call them – mantra?) for mentorship: I’m dusty, I’m bloody, I’m tired, and I too have only received a 1% raise over the last 5 years (hey, money is an intrinsic motivator and without it you rely solely on humanistic drive to still want to make things better than they were), but I’m still willing to fight with you, and when we win that fight together (and the next one, and the next one…), my hand will be extended — ready to pull you out — and serve you up a stiff drink.
I didn’t have that hand extended to me, though I’ve had more than my share of stiff drinks, and I’m okay with that at this point in my career, because I realize now how that has made me want to do that much more for somebody else. I’m drawn to the idea of being a leader, a mentor, a motivator, a listener, and a fighter. I guess I’m a lot like my 2-year-old daughter, who doesn’t mind getting banged up and bloody on the trampoline, as long as you were on there with her getting tossed around, too.
I don’t want lukewarm reactions in life; from myself, my kids, from my future partner (!), friends, students, co-workers, family, strangers, etc. I want people to instinctively react based on their most immediate emotions without having to worry about how it will come across, or whether it will offend (it is nearly impossible to offend me). Okay, so know you’re probably thinking that this type of reaction lacks depth, but it’s quite the opposite. When somebody reacts right away, it’s honest, pure, raw emotions/feelings.
Just show up. 