Literally show me a person with healthy boundaries
Yesterday I searched my email inbox for a pdf of letterhead for a college where I once taught as an adjunct so that I could write a recommendation for a student who had taken one of my classes there in 2017. I found the template, downloaded it, figured out how to get text onto the pdf, then wrote the recommendation. I found a stamp, addressed the envelope, and walked it to the mailbox on my way to pick Raffi up from afterschool. None of this was very time consuming! The only part of it that was difficult, other than the pdf formatting thing, took place a few days earlier when, having forgotten that I had access to that letterhead pdf, I thought that I would have to instead provide "a brief CV" to accompany my recommendation, so I opened my academic CV -- a file I hadn't opened since 2018 -- and started tailoring it to this purpose, then got flustered because it felt so futile and made me have to contemplate how I had once really wanted a full time teaching job. And then I had to think about the ensuing overlong process of permanently giving up on that dream. Oh also, about a week earlier, I'd spent some time figuring out how to get my friend Lauren's printer and my computer to communicate with each other so that I could print out the recommendation letter.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that this endeavor took, approximately, 1000 hours. But also it was no big deal and I WANTED to do it. That's the catch, always. When a student -- a talented and deserving student, by the way, who had an essay in BEST AMERICAN ESSAYS last year and who I had no trouble finding several paragraphs of heartfelt and specific praise for -- asks me for a recommendation, of course I want to write them a recommendation! I want to do anything I can, always, to smooth the paths of people in their early writing careers. I want them to get into fully funded programs or get grants and fellowships that will enable them to attend non fully funded programs. What kind of monster wouldn't want that?
But also, I have to somehow find a way to prevent myself ever from doing that again. Or at least: not doing that again til I feel like I can be generous without resenting what generosity takes from me, which is something that, right now at least, I can't afford to give.
During a therapy session about whether it's a good idea for me to take a part time "day job" type job, I was listing off a bunch of "being a good literary citizen" things I do-- things like blurbing, being interviewed for podcasts and documentaries about other people's work, doing 'in conversation with' book Zoom events. If I got a part time copywriting job, I really won't have time to do that stuff anymore, I told her. And she said, therapistishly, "What would happen if you stopped doing that stuff anyway?"
It was an artful way of forcing me to come to a realization that I'm sure has been looming for me for a while, letting itself be obscured at times behind a pile of pressing tasks that have, at their root, a desire to avoid conflict, be liked, sow goodwill in the (increasingly dim) hope that the goodwill is going to be bankable, transferrable, cumulative, all the other things that goodwill isn't but money is.
The realization was: what if everyone I ever met who didn't immediately accommodate, humor, enlighten or befriend me wasn't -- as I'd assumed -- a cold, selfish jerk? What if they were just mature adults who were aware of how much of themselves they could safely afford to dole out to strangers?
What would happen if I believed that? (Lol.)
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This week brought two other really sharp-relief tests of my new Boundaries Goals, one of which I flubbed badly. I will write more about it in tomorrow's paid-subscriber-only newsletter. The paying subscriber thing still isn't working for a lot of people, you can email me or Justin from Buttondown (justin@buttondown.email) directly.
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Some other things I've enjoyed recently:
More Jean Hanff Korelitz. I kind of want to watch The Undoing now. It was satisfying but also stressful to spend so much time in the UES private school milieu.
My friend Laura Jane Faulds started a newsletter. The first one is full of incredible imagery and and meditation hallucinations. "All the dragonflies were different colour combos and seemed to have their own specific vibe. I hoped they knew, on some level, what colours they were."
Kathryn Jezer-Morton fills in some Momfluencer blanks
I disagree that the characters in Crossroads are allegorical and not fully human but I always appreciate Lynn Steger Strong's criticism and also J Franz doesn't need me stanning. Also, lol re "J Franz"