Knowing When to Leave
It has been a while since I have had the brain space to write - disability does that sometimes, but I said I was going to embrace the mess when I started this space, so I am trying to do that.
In the last year, I have been going through some Tower/Hanged One moments, for those who follow tarot, and for those who don't - big drastic changes as well as uncomfortable but productive perspective shifts. I have had to accept that I have and need a carer. My carer was sick for almost a year and was hospitalized for part of it. That had a many-month impact on me, even after they got home. In the past, I would have tried to play it off, to say that I am fine and can roll with the punches, and while my carer was sick, that was what I did. Once the crisis passed though, I couldn't deny the boomerang effect that knocked me out. I was too tired to do anything.
So in typical Virgo moon fashion, I started caring for myself by making lists and getting organized. It started out as a budget thing, trying to cut off what I could, but then realizing that I don't actually have a lot to cut, so I shifted perspectives. What do I want to focus on? When do I need multiple projects and when are they a distraction?
Amidst this, I chose the word "intuition" as my theme for the year. I knew that I needed to get more at home in myself to continue on a few healing paths, but in typical fashion, the healing came in on its own terms. First, I had a spiritual teacher who said that they were done teaching, and I didn't listen. I was so terrified of losing them that I kept pushing until things just blew up in my face and forced me to sift through two years of work to identify what was valuable and the few things (mostly at the end) that they said that I think were toxic and hurtful. This is harder than just believing everything they said or chucking all of it out - I had to figure out what resonated and what didn't. Unlike previous learning environments (school, university) I get to have a say in what is true for me. I can't just outsource my insecurity and look for approval from my teacher figures.
After this connection collapsed, I was a mess for a week, questioning everything I thought about myself and trying to figure out what it meant to have an ego and where I was avoiding hard truths vs. where my teacher was just wrong. This was different though. I had others I could ask questions of, who did not try to answer questions for me, but asked me caring questions in return. I had to find the answers for myself, but I wasn't actually by myself.
This week, I had to decide to leave another situation, but the deep soul searching of this year helped me do so with more comfort, a bit of poetry, and a splash of impishness.
For the last few years, I had been working towards a license to teach something, and the whole process really helped me start thinking about ways I wanted to work outside of traditional employment. It was a slightly corporate setting, so before I joined, I journaled about what mattered to me and how I wanted to feel and told myself that I would leave if I had to compromise too much. After decades of being told that I had to mold myself to fit whatever and whoever the job description said I needed to be, this was my permission to be my full disabled and queer (in the political sense) self. The people were lovely and supportive, welcoming me and my perspectives, supporting my early efforts and helping me envision a different future. They valued the perspective my disability brought - as I rarely failed to mention it, despite my own fears that people would find it repetitive or otherwise write me off.
The tricky part came when I needed accommodations. They could give me extra time (to a point), and I appreciated it. However, when I raised questions about the structure of the final assessment and the high licensing fee, I was told there was no accommodations to be made. To be fair, I understand that things cost money and fees help pay for all of the lovely admin that keeps license structures running. I also understand that assessments have to be somewhat consistent to mean anything. However, this is also where questions of accessibility come in. Accessibility is so often seen as a "nice to have" rather than a requirement. It is "nice to have" diverse perspectives. It is "nice to have" people who's brains work differently to help us solve problems. It is "nice to have" ramps, because now everyone who has a bike or a stroller can also use them. Accessibility is not a "nice to have," for me. It makes the difference between me being able to do things and having to miss out. It is the difference between me being able to have energy to work and take a shower on the same day vs. having to decide between the two.
This didn't feel right anymore. I didn't feel welcome anymore. In a community that I thought had been built on learning to see nuance, the black and white of their accommodation policy was jarring. So I decided to leave. I am still heartbroken about it. The sunk cost fallacy makes me wonder if I should just lie to myself and stick it out, but I also promised myself that I would take care of this body and not force it into shapes it can't sustain. My promise to myself means more to me. Even though I have to grieve what could have been and the community I am leaving behind, I am also freer to do what matters to me. I get to redirect that energy into building a work practice that is accessible, a place where I work to help others make their own lives more accessible. I get to be my ever changing hanged-one self, always trying to find new things that make me uncomfortable to help me see a new perspective.
Right now, this looks like coming back to a writing practice and also sketching out a business where I can help people streamline admin/information management tasks so that they can focus more on what they love. If you have ideas or things you would like me to write about, feel free to drop me a line at aberson45@gmail.com. If you have admin tasks you might want help with, also feel free to reach out and we could discuss what I might be able to offer. I am in the early stages of this, and working with others and seeing how their brains work is super helpful to me.