on growing….

I chose "Grow" as my word of the year this year….and oh boy. All of those intentions of moving forward, figuring life out, figuring out next steps in school, making my marriage better….those lovely intentions aren’t as much fun as I expected. 
Or…I expected growth to look like this lovely green exciting thing, like baby kale plants in early fall. And it’s been more like trying to tame a runaway vine into something contained and productive. 

I started this academic year with a sense that I had something to make up for, that I needed to work harder, find more venues to present my work, that I needed to prove that my department didn’t make a poor choice when they accepted me into this program. Which was sort of working, until my uncontrolled Crohn’s brought progress to a screeching halt. Now I’m taking an incomplete in a class for the first time ever. (Although I have WAY clearer ideas about my dissertation…but more about that later). 

A couple weeks ago, one of my officemates told me I should speak to a young woman who’s a graduate of our department and still works on campus about her experience with Crohn’s. Since my officemate was the second person to suggest I talk to her, I sent an email, and we set up a coffee date for Friday. We talked a bit…about research interests and experiences in the program (she also did both her masters and doctorate in this program), and then she turned the conversation to Crohn’s….and she said "For me, it’s been an invitation to grow. It’s been really hard, but it’s also been the best thing in the world for me, because it got me off of the path I was headed down. My life was all about achievement, and with Crohn’s, I just couldn’t do that anymore." 

I don’t know that I’ve ever physically felt someone’s words that much. Because I’ve always thought of this disease as an obstacle…a wall to be torn down, a mountain to be climbed, something to be beaten into submission. But to embrace it as part of me, to let it shape my path rather than just raging against it…I don’t even think I realized that was a choice. Let alone that it might be the right choice. (And here’s another moment where I realize that the "stages of grief" model was built around chronic illness, and is more relevant to it than anything else). I asked her how she made time for marriage counseling…and her response was "my health and my marriage are the most important things in my life." And I had that sense of awe- that you can choose for something besides deadlines and to-do lists and bills getting paid to be what controls your time and life choices.

We talked more….it was good to hear that someone else experiences some of the weird symptoms I do (the joints in my hands hurt all the time right now, for instance) and that life symptom-free is possible and happens. The promise that one day I will wake up and not feel tired is encouraging. But this message of reframing what I think my life is going to look like, what I want it to look like….
She mentioned giving up being the person running all the big projects, acknowledging that she’ll always have to have a state or federal government job (insurance), and committing to not working more than 30 hours a week.

I’m trying to get my head around this….her disease has been quite a bit more than mine (required major surgery near the end of her doctorate), and Crohn’s is so individual it’s hard to extrapolate from someone’s experience. But….my dreams of being in a leadership role in a nonprofit organization are not something I want to think about giving up. Crohn’s already stole my dreams of joining the Peace Corps.  Sigh. One of the things about public health is that it’s a discipline that’s about making the world a better place…it’s not hard to throw yourself completely into it. But I’m realizing that, as many things as I want to see changed (social norms that tolerate violence against women,  the healthcare system in the US, stigma and shame that prevent adolescents from seeking sexual health services, for starters) my health and my marriage are also priorities that deserve to be fought for.  I’m not a 30 hour a week kind of person….I have a hard time separating my professional life from my identity. I’ve worked hard to become good at things (making research studies happen, evaluating programs) and sometimes it’s hard to remember that I am more than those skills. And that I’m more than this disease. These days all of my time is spent working, sleeping, or feeling guilty about not working, and I’m tired of living this way.

So…in the words of the inimitable Joni Mitchell:
"There’ll be new dreams, maybe better dreams and plenty, before the last revolving year is through."