To Blog Or Not To Blog

The assignment was simple: write a blog post each week during 2017. Though the task was self-assigned it was not always easy, but it was one of the best choices I’ve made in the recent past.

I gave myself the assignment because I had felt lazy, lacking direction, and a little lost on life’s road. In the fall of 2017 I started the part-time tutor job, but I didn’t abandon my goal. I saw the assignment through to completion with my final blog post borrowing the title from the song from A Chorus Line, “What I Did For Love.”

During 2018 my blog posts were random, coming when I was inspired, or, more often than not, when I needed to use writing as an outlet. That trend has seemed to continue into this year with my blog posts being near stream of consciousness musings about the events in my life.

My most recent blog post this year, “Burning Bridges,” talked about my departure from my tutor job mid-February. Those rather dull days at work early this year and last year were when I began to think quite seriously about writing again. I spent some time looking into how to make money as a writer, and I have indeed made a little money doing freelance writing for a somewhat local publication.

Most of that writing has been “advertorial,” short stories about the publication’s advertisers, their businesses – new locations, new products, things of that nature. Those assignments often turns out to be more interesting than one might initially think because they always involve interviewing people, and people have a story to tell. Their stories often emerge amidst the seemingly mundane details of owning or operating a business.

I am currently looking, and working, to expand my freelance writing opportunities. I am also looking at the blogs of successful friends and others in order to determine the direction that this, or another more focused blog forum could take.

I am pleased to have the flexibility at this point to pursue this dream, now a concrete goal, and to make it a reality. I am excited about the possibilities, and, for perhaps the first in my life, I believe that I will experience reasonable success as a writer in time and with persistence. 

Though I did believe that I needed some mental discipline, and writing fulfilled that requirement, ultimately I took on that challenge in 2017 because it was indeed something that I did for love. Whether two or 22 people read my posts, it didn’t matter; I had the chance to write and to share my writing every week.

The question has never really been to blog or not to blog – to write or not to write. The question now is how best to direct my efforts as it relates both to blogging and to writing beyond the blog. The Listener may remain much the same; it may change to a more specific format; or an entirely new blog site may emerge.

Whatever direction this takes, I thank those of you who have chosen to read and to follow my blog posts through the years, and I hope you will join me again as I fill new pages.

Burning Bridges

I have recently come to the realization that I may have made a habit of making changes in such a way that the bridges were burning behind me as I moved on.

February 18th was my last day as a biology tutor at the community college where I had filled that part-time role since the fall of 2017. I did not give two weeks notice as did the colleague whose last day was the Wednesday before my departure.

I went to work that Monday morning with the intention of cleaning out my box – just in case. In addition to containing all of the things I used for tutoring students, my box contained some things that I wanted to keep, and some things that I wanted faculty in the biology department to have rather than anyone in the department to which I had been assigned in the summer of 2018. I had planned to work that entire Monday, but that morning when I got to work, I found out something that changed my mind, and I had to ask to find out. Another tutor was chosen to be coverage for the tutor who had left the previous week, a role I had always assumed just naturally prior to that Monday.

It was Presidents Day, and my husband was off from work. When he came to meet me for lunch, I took the things that I had wanted from my box; sent the letter of resignation, that I had written about a month prior, to the dean of our department; and emailed my boss saying I was going to clock out for lunch and not return – and that’s exactly what I did. My husband and I were in complete agreement about the decision.

After completing my internship and officially earning my Bachelor’s degree in exercise science in the summer of 2014, I continued to work at the private health and wellness studio where I had completed that internship.

During the internship, the relationship I had developed with the owner had deteriorated, but I wasn’t entirely sure why. Previously free with sharing of information and encouragement, and even with autonomy to an extent as I worked with clients, she had become demeaning and demanding. I worked for her until one Saturday in November when I taught the morning class of senior citizens that I had taught for nearly a year. I said goodbye to them one more time, then I left my resignation letter and the key to the studio in an envelope, locked the door, and walked away.

My departure was very similar to that of the intern who was still working there when I started my internship. Perhaps that should have been a warning. Still, little if anything was lost in leaving that role, except the money she owed me from clients I had worked with for the month prior to my leaving. My inquiry about the pay was met with what had become her new normal snide response.

After I left the community college, I realized that the way I had left would likely not allow for me to return, in any capacity. In reality I realized that before walking out the door that Monday afternoon. I believe little was lost there after the management change as well.

I began to wonder why it is that I have seemed to find myself in these untenable working situations on more than one occasion. I wondered if it was my inability, or unwillingness, to tackle confrontations directly.

As I think back on the internship site and my employer there, I challenged her on occasion, and I defended myself and my decisions when necessary. I believed that I had nothing to gain by having a “sit-down” with her prior to my leaving. For some reason, I had lost her respect – or her interest. I had also lost my interest in trying to figure out why, and in trying to regain it.

After the management change at the community college, I was left with a boss who did not know me, and who did not appear to want to know me. The difference there was that several people in the biology department did know me, and some knew me fairly well. It was worth continuing on for that reason and for the chance to actually help their students when I could.

At the breaking point though, I felt much the same way I did when I left the wellness center, but in this case my boss never had any respect for or confidence in me. I had no interest in trying further to gain it.

I think to some extent that the way I left both of those roles was due to the fact that I stayed too long.

In each case, I had valued some relationships. I had truly enjoyed working with the owner of the health and wellness center for at least a year, and with her young intern before her departure. At the community college, I valued the relationships I had with some of the biology faculty, and those connections I had made with the other tutors.

I also believe I stayed too long in each of those roles because I had been taught not to quit. Differentiating between what is “quitting,” and what is having put forth reasonable effort to make it work is not always easy, but at some point a decision has to be made.

I also wonder if I stayed too long in each position because I feared that there would be nothing else out there for me. Indeed the career prospects have been bleak since my second college graduation.

While little if anything has changed in the job market or in my proximity to gainful employment, I have few if any regrets as I look back at the debris from the bridges I have burned.

Given my degrees, my experience, my talents, and my situation I believe it may just be time that I build some bridges of my own.