Phlox & Zinnia

I just worked my first week of camp, the same summer job I’ve been working for the last five years. I know the routine, I know my coworkers, and I know generally what my day is going to look like—spending 7 hours entertaining five-year-olds. I also know that I’ll be exhausted by 9 o’clock and asleep by 10. But night after night this week, I laid awake stressing about whether teaching is what I’m meant to be doing and about what it is going to be like to live in Grand Rapids and if I’m going to live there long term or let myself up and leave to a completely new place. It was super frustrating, and by Thursday night I realized I couldn’t sleep because I had something to say, something that’s been bubbling up this month despite my best efforts to ignore it.

I’ve realized that I really really suck at dealing with major changes. I seem to turn into this anxious and clingy monster who can’t believe that she has changed middle school and wonders how she is pulling off this heist of stealing everyone’s feelings. It’s partly imposter syndrome—I lay awake at night thinking, “I don’t know good strategies to teach students how to read”—but a part of it is that with every new major transition I have, I feel the pressure to reform my identity. For some people this may be freeing; for me, it’s debilitating.

My first three weeks of college I got really stuck in this vortex. The last time I had a chance to really start over was when I was entering LCA in sixth grade. In elementary school, I was the shy girl, but I started to grow more and more away from that throughout middle school. By high school, I doubt any of my Burlington classmates would have recognized who I was. Then suddenly I was in a new state with 2 people out of 900 who had known me, and I had the chance to redefine myself. I questioned a lot of things—my own ability to make friends, the level of engagement I was going to have in college, if I should have looked at other schools—but after my mom gave me a “come to Jesus” text, I settled in.

I’m in the vortex again. I’m questioning all I learned in college, if I learned anything about education, whether I’m qualified at all, if I want the job that I’m committed to now, and whether it was the right choice to be in Massachusetts for the summer and be in Grand Rapids for the rest of the year. It’s hard for me to move on from being a student and shedding that identity without stepping straight into the identity I’ve been picturing myself in—English teacher. Instead, I’m in the nebulous fog of post-grad first jobs and exploring the job market and figuring out how to make friends in new social circles. I need a new identity, but I’m not starting my job for another month. So instead I just get to stress about whether I fit that mold or not.

The lesson I should be taking away from this is that I need to ground my identity in something outside of myself and draw comfort from that—i.e. see myself as a Christian first and foremost and let everything else be secondary. That idea is much easier said than done.

What I am taking away from this is what popped into my head during church this morning, which was, “This place is not meeting my needs fully.” I love Massachusetts and I love being home this summer, but in all honesty I’m glad I’m not staying here. I need the city, I need my church, and I need my housemates. I know even if my job isn’t perfect and even if there could have been a perfect one elsewhere I’m still going to learn and grow and be supported in Grand Rapids. There are people there who know me as an adult and are ready to help me cultivate new interests and new skills as I step out even further into independent living, and I’m so grateful that I know I have that support.

I’m struggling with seeing who I am fully, but maybe instead of stressing out about nailing my self-identity down in stone, I can trust the kaleidoscope of my identities that you all present back to me. Easier said than done but still something to strive for.

I have recommendations, but I don’t really want to write down why and honestly I’ve probably already told you about them. Watch Fleabag, listen to The Anthropocene Reviewed, and read Oceanic by Aimee Nezhukumatathil.

My sales pitch is that Goodreads is great for those conversations when someone says, "I just read this amazing book" or "You'd really love [insert author here]" or when your middle school student says, "You should send me some summer reading book recommendations!" Instead of scrambling to remember that one book that you without fail recommend to everyone, you can pull out your phone and scroll through the last ten books you read and say, "Hey, I think this one would be great." You can smile, search up that obscure novel, and put it on a list that you pull out before you weasel your way over to the library. The app itself is awful at recommending books, but if you successfully convince your friend to also join and be active, you can just take recommendations from them! Whenever you want!

When I gave up social media for lent, the only one I didn't take off my phone was Goodreads. Did it really count as a social media if I couldn't scroll endlessly through random articles and acquaintances' pictures? What really ended up happening is that I transferred the energy I spent scrolling through Twitter to scrolling through books. And honestly? It was better because I only explored one thing: books. I didn't find myself five people deep into past Bachelor contestants or puzzling over new Tumblr memes; I got to get excited about new books and share my thoughts about what I was reading.

I try to view all my social media as a tracking tool, utilized in order to record my thoughts about the moment I am currently in. Goodreads does that the best because of its simplicity: it catalogs my adventures in books, and it does not demand anything more.

My aunt and I sat down after days of celebration with family about graduations and birthdays, and I set up her account. "Let's look at your mom's books and what she wrote reviews for," she said. I opened up the 470-odd books that my mom had cataloged, and we laughed as she used the words "love" and "redemptive" over and over again. I've often become sad that I don't get to share the books I read with my mom anymore, but scrolling through that list I realized she left me with a treasure trove of books to add to my list. Without her diligence and her insistence on me joining, I would have lost that part of her forever.